The Freckles on My Face
by AmberPalette
Summary: First love and the exploration of the concept that even a Death Eater might once have been a normal human boy. Several chapters, Malfoy Family, especially Lucius. Don't run off even if you hate the Malfoys perhaps especially if you DO.
1. Chapter 1

The Freckles on My Face

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content. Near the end of this fanfiction (one of the last chapters), there is an ALLUSION to a past rape. It is not detailed, but it is nevertheless enough that the reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read that passage. Aside that, this fiction is PG.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy's parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

This fanfiction is (mainly) not a social commentary piece like my Draco Malfoy story, "Wood Sorrel and Dragon Pox." It is more a hypothetical slice of the adolescence of certain Harry Potter characters that we only know and hate as full-fledged adults. I simply contend that even the most hardened and cruel Death Eater, Nazi or Klansman may have once been a relatively normal, awkward teenager—a human being, that is—and that this fact may be what is saddest about his/her turn towards darkness. To overcome and defeat the monsters of a given society, one must be able to empathize with who those same monsters once were.

I also want to encourage young women reading this that your compassion towards that troubled young man in your life is always admirable—but I urge you, ultimately, to follow the path of Odile, not Narcissa. Read and see what I mean. And enjoy!

_August, the summer before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

Your heart is not open so I must go The spell has been broken, I loved you so Freedom comes when you learn to let go Creation comes when you learn to say no You were my lesson I had to learn I was your fortress you had to burn Pain is a warning that something's wrong I pray to God that it won't be long Do ya wanna go higher? There's nothing left to lose There's no more heart to bruise There's no greater power Than the power of good-bye" -Madonna 

It was a most unusual situation, this.

No one really had packed the proper style of trouser socks, so all three of the Hogwarts boys were forced to wear oversized black cotton socks under their dress shoes for the party.

Well, wait, that really wasn't what was unusual. Actually….

The Gryffindor graduate Susan Collins, a short, pretty, extremely pleasant and motherly blonde, was hosting an end-of-summer dinner for close friends and family at her Muggle aunt Sophie's sprawling townhouse in Boston. Her parents, both Muggles as well, hastened to prepare the hors d'oeuvres, their enormous dog Charlie barked joyously at arriving guests, and her on and off boyfriend Haylin Daire (a werewolf, mind you, and a standoffish sort, but nevertheless a friend like no other), and his two best friends and their parents, had been invited. Both of the best friends had been at her place, actually, all summer: It was their parents who were the new arrivals.

One best friend was Alexis Renard, a Ravenclaw like Haylin, a charming, buoyantly cheerful boy from France who had brought along his Squib girlfriend Jewlie Wells (she had chocolate hair, note, not brown, but _chocolate, _and she was a Seer, and God he adored her) and her father Hal Wells, whom he had not yet met, and who was due any minute.

Renard, though he had brought his parents, Victor and Odile, and his little sister Margaret, was a bit nervous.

Haylin's other best friend was Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince and Pureblood Extraordinaire, who had already apologized sixteen (actually counted) times that afternoon in anticipation of his mother Narcissa insulting Mrs. Collins's cheese cubes and little Jewish rye bread slices. His mother was such a snob about bourgeois activities, but she wasn't that repulsive really, that was his father—and after all, the pink-cheeked Draco added, laughing in an agitated and embarrassed fashion that sounded like hyperventilation, there was no way his father would condescend to attend a Muggle social event.

Mrs. Collins had patted the boy's arm and smoothed his sleek white-blond hair out of his anxious eyes, and crooned that it was "quite alright."

Draco just stood there biting his lip at the too-damn-sweet lady. "No, really, I AM sorry," he finally said, for time number seventeen.

So Susan told her surrogate little brother—a somewhat remarkable friendship, as he called any other Muggle-born within earshot the infamous "M" word—to go fill his plate and help answer the door.

Draco started laughing like a human again, instead of a suffocated alley cat. "Right, okay," he grumbled, regaining his haughty, defiant swagger. He smirked, situating himself between Renard, Jewlie, the wryly loitering Haylin, and the table. With much self-entitlement, he filled his plate and wolfed down every crumb.

The doorbell chimed. Draco's smirking, wintercloud gray eyes suddenly widened in childlike wonder. "WHOZZAGON' GETTIT?" he bellowed at the others, flinging down his paper plate.

Susan's hermetic cousin, Michael Flanagan, jumped, nearly dropping his own toothpick speared gourmet at this outburst. He reset his thick-rimmed glasses primly. "Well," he crisply spat.

"Jaysus Laurd, kid," Haylin (who was Irish and proud of his Cork accent) laughed while trying to smooth down the dishevelment of both his strawberry blond curls and his helplessly wrinkled polo shirt. "Get it yourself!"

Renard's mother Odile tossed back her auburn hair and let out a throaty womanly laugh. His father Victor rolled his eyes and sucked in his olive cheeks. Renard himself smiled sheepishly at Jewlie, anticipating that this might be her hailed and hallowed father at last.

Draco rushed to the door in his floppy, too-large black trouser socks, silver tie a bit askew, finishing off the last of the coveted Cheddar cheese cubes on his way and grinning at Haylin's roars of mock protest from the balcony door. His white marble cheeks flushed delicate peach with the exhilaration of the chill evening wind as Susan's mother, a plate of shrimp and sauce balanced in one hand, flung open the front door. Jim Collins's Labrador, Charlie, followed Draco closely, his wagging tail whopping the side of the boy's black trousers.

"Hullo, hullo, welcome!" Mrs. Collins cried at the open doorway, rather frighteningly cheerful in her display of motherly hospitality, her dimpled apple cheeks glowing. She seized her latest guest's hand in her small warm round grasp and squeezed.

"Mum!" Draco happily barked, trying to sidestep the hostess.

Narcissa Black Malfoy was decked head to toe in a pale ice green crinoline evening gown with trim and overcloak of snow-white ermine. She blinked her long fair eyelashes at her overzealous greeter, then flashed a startlingly uncharacteristic, warm smile at her only child, aquamarine blue eyes softening. "Darling," she crooned, gliding forward and embracing her son, her platinum blonde hair, a mix of French twist and chignon, burning with an interlaced headpiece of shimmering white diamonds.

Draco had been mid-bow, as was old wizarding filial custom, when his mother enveloped him. His cheeks ignited red now, with a mixture of awkwardness and contentment. He retuned the hug tightly. "Missed you," he mumbled, mouth against her shoulder, great gray eyes partially obscured by his drained-blond hair.

"I know," she breathed back, stroking the back of that sleek young head with a diamond and peridot ringed hand. "I missed you too, my heart."

Someone behind them cleared his throat and rapped something sharp and metal on the hardwood floor of the foyer.

Draco looked up and all the color seeped from his cheeks. "…Father," he said, guardedly.

Oops. Well hell froze over.

Crap.

Draco began to back away from his mother, with the distinct look of caged prey. His fingers trembled slightly as he straightened that errant tie.

The entire room stiffened.

The very last person anyone would have anticipated was standing in the foyer of a "Mudblood's" home.

Lucius Malfoy sniffed at the room, his silver, emerald-eyed snake cane planted on the floor of the Collins household entryway. His hair, the silver-white blond of his son's, was brushed to glossiness and tied back with a colonial era squire's black velvet bow. He wore long shimmering dress robes of the same color as his wife's gown, the textiles sporting more hooks, jewels, and buttons than any sane individual would ever dare endure. His arctic gray eyes circumvented the small crowd in one imperious sweep. He loomed inside with the air of one who intends to be formally announced to a crowd of the highly upper crust.

Featuring, perhaps, a small trumpet fanfare.

"Good evening, Dra-_co,_" he purred, his drawling voice lilting airily up at the end of his son's name. He looked bored, as if he had shown up as the result of great pains to his own personal schedule. This appearance had, rather obviously, been a deep favor to his wife alone.

An unkindly sporting look had come into Victor Renard's fiery brown gaze. He smirked but remained silent. This was most likely because Odile had seized his forearm and squeezed it quellingly until her knuckles had whitened.

Lucius swept past wife and child without a single backward glance, settling himself by the food table and crossing his richly clad arms with arrogance and obstinacy. Fingers tightly clutched around his cane, he spoke not another word.

His eyes settled on the remainders of the cheese, a combination of Brie, Havarti, and Monterey Jack. His nostrils curled at the colloquial toothpick presentation.

Odile watched him closely and slipped past her husband, hoping to buffer the unexpected guest from less fortunate individuals who might cross his path.

Such as her son.

And her daughter.

And her son's best friend.

And Lucius's own son, who looked very close to vomiting on the Turkish area rug for anxiety. Thankfully Margaret, in her pearls and little white cotton summer shift, had made her way over to her third "big brother," and was hugging his arm comfortingly. Draco's complexion shed its gray-green tones and he seemed to breathe easier.

Gradually the buzz of companionable chatter resumed. Renard seemed both relieved and disappointed, and Jewlie hugged his waist and pecked him on the cheek, urging calm and patience.

Narcissa watched Odile with a glare at first vitriolic; she knew that woman's history with her husband, back in their schooldays at Hogwarts, and her somewhat irrational suspicions were buzzing high. Susan's mother, however, soon distracted her with probing questions about the Ministry of Magic and this "Durmstrang" school in Germany, of which Draco so often glowingly spoke.

"Lucius," Odile chimed. "My God, it's been years." She touched his arm to catch his attention.

Malfoy Senior blinked at her. His brooding, arrogant expression altered subtly, such that the frown line between his fair eyebrows was less pronounced and the corners of his lips curled up like the taut ends of a pale pink bow. "Indeed, Odile," he spoke. "And the years have, it seems, been uncommonly good to you." And then he actually smiled. It was quite charming, and despite the fact that his gaze flicked over to gain a satisfied glimpse of Victor's irritated visage, the grin possessed a grain of genuine delight in her presence. Then he took her hand and kissed it.

Victor's jaw muscle tensed. Narcissa's teeth ground.

"Why thank you, cher," Odile replied, retrieving her hand somewhat hastily.

No time was wasted with awkward small talk. As though they had seen each other the day before, she launched into a barrage of riotous stories about her days as a Healer at St. Mungo's—one of which included charming the gurneys of an unpopular Mediwizard's operating room to his ceiling on Halloween.

Lucius smirked, chuckled, and loudly laughed, in that order, making no attempt to stifle the boisterous cackles that escaped him.

At which point hell again froze over.

Draco gazed over at his father with an expression of abject shock.

"Yer da's human tonight," Haylin remarked, blinking.

"Because my mama is remarkable," Renard quipped.

"Um." Draco's wide gray stare turned on the French boy with slight irritation. "I think you're more correct than you realize," he mumbled.

Odile's smile, however, never wavered. An hour of reminiscing aside, she remarked, "By the way, they still talk about your donation to St. Mungo's. Bit of a publicity stunt?"

Lucius's eyes glistened wryly. Tiny creases formed beneath them; his smile actually reached his gaze for once. "Maybe."

"But there was kindness in it."

"You think so?" Now he was grinning, she perceived, at her calm, bold carriage. A figure as intimidating as him probably did not get many actual, entertaining challenges from his peers. But she had always challenged him, in a sporting sort of way. He had always loved it.

"And to the ward in which I was hospitalized during my….break."

"Correct. How astute, my dear."

"Because I was in it."

"….Possibly." His lips hardly moved when she spoke. Like a ventriloquist controlled his cool, gliding words and gestures. She'd always found that fascinating.

She sighed and nodded once, slowly. "Merci, old friend. A good deed in the midst of, I am told, much foul mischief."

"All in the eye of the beholder." A sneering edge entered his smile for a moment, but his eyes became sober. "It is never too late to renounce your ties with Albus Dumbledore's lot. I could convince the Master whom I serve of your entire family's fealty to him. It would not be that much trouble for you and yours, Odile. You need do nothing but let him complete his task, without standing in his way. Turn a blind eye. I can help you."

"No, Lucius." Odile's tone dipped low. "No. You know how I always felt about Tom Riddle and his nasty, megalomaniacal rhetoric."

Lucius's cheekbones sucked inward. "That is no longer his name."

"It is to me. He can pretend he is whatever he likes, but I will not participate in his cruel masquerade. No, Lucius."

"Odile. You saved my wife's life only three years after Draco was born." There was something new and foreign on Lucius Malfoy's face now: Uncertainty. Fear.

"And you needn't return the favor. Not like that." She took his hand again, the one she had so decisively repelled moments ago, and squeezed it. Tightly.

Silence.

Odile smiled warmly up at her fellow guest's struggling face, still holding onto his larger, stronger hand. His grasp was limp. His jaw muscle clenched and unclenched rhythmically as he thrust an expression of icy daggers across the Muggle interior, eyes cast only slightly in relief by the platinum streaks of hair that slipped out of his queue. "These people," he grumbled, in a tone of utter disgust. His expression was now strangely pained. "You always feel the need to protect their kind. It is utterly inscrutable."

"And you think that is the only reason why I chose Victor, and you chose Narcissa, all those years ago? We chose the right spouses for so many other reasons, Lucius, and you know that." Odile suddenly felt very tired. She wriggled her fingers, experimenting with retrieving her hand again.

But Lucius would not give her hand back. His grasp remained loose but resolute. His eyes flashed across her face, and there was an echo of betrayal crackling in his gray irises. In a slightly feverish tone, he whispered, "Not that it really matters at THIS point, Odile, but you were MINE first. NOT his, and don't you forget that."

Calmly, she replied, "I was and am no one's but my own."

"You will _never_ know what I would have gladly given you. But don't fret, my dear_, she_ got all of it instead. I DO hope you're content with that." He nodded ferociously at his wife, who was still obliviously gabbing with her engaging hostess, laughing in a silvery way, like sickles falling on cobblestone. "My Cissa certainly is."

Oh, was she? Odile noticed the vein pulsing against her old friend's fair forehead, heard the strain in his words, and certainly perceived forced effort in the haughty façade of satisfaction that Narcissa was sporting. And she wondered how much of Lucius's bragging was truth, and how much a spiteful comeback tossed at her decades late.

Draco and Renard were staring at their father and mother, respectively, now. Haylin, for the sake of the spectacle, had joined them in their wide-eyed, curious gawking. Little Margaret, still attached to Draco's waist, smiled at her mother and waved sunnily.

Odile waved back, and watched the kids, then Narcissa. She looked at Lucius, and then over at her husband Victor, who was doing everything he could to seem inconspicuous but who was, quite endearingly, loitering at the wine bottles and getting himself a bit drunk on the Chardonnay in order to closely monitor what the six-foot-one blond snake was doing and saying to his adored wife. She smiled, if it were possible, both happily and sadly all at once. "Lucius."

"What?" Spoken with great annoyance.

"….Can you count the freckles on my face?"

A pause.

Then he turned to her, very slowly. Sadness haunted that troubled expression—so subtly that it was nearly indeterminable even to Odile, who was but inches from him. Then it was gone, and his calmly snide expression of custom was restored. But…"There are just enough to make you beautiful," he said.

And then she felt his hand squeeze hers. Tightly.


	2. Chapter 2

The Freckles on My Face:

Chapter 2

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content. Near the end of this fanfiction, there is an ALLUSION to a past rape. It is not detailed, but it is nevertheless enough that the reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read that passage. Aside that, this fiction is for a PG-suited audience.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy's parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

The following is an excerpt from another fanfiction that I wrote, to refresh the memory of readers on the history of the two principle characters before I delve into their teenage years. Enjoy!

Mid August, 12 summers before the Goblet of Fire

"_You know your mother, Malfoy?" said Harry… "that expression she's got, like she's got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?"_

_Malfoy's pale face went slightly pink._

"_Don't you dare insult my mother, Potter."_

_--from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling._

St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Mysteries was exceedingly quiet until five after midnight. The man with the long silver blond hair and the purple-black aristocratic squire's garments arrived in the reception area then, his starched white dress shirt untucked under his jacket and spattered in blood, having burst through the entryway of Purge and Dowse, Ltd, carrying a profusely bleeding woman with equally arctic hair and pale skin, her neck and chest gushing red. He struck the Welcoming Witch, a plump sandy-haired individual of great sangfroid working the front desk, as someone who usually took great pains to appear impeccably comely, but, in the current situation, was rather disheveled and very distraught. Behind him, the Witch noted with a small pang of sympathy, toddled a boy, no older than two or three, who too possessed a towhead and exceedingly fair skin now flushed with tears of horror.

The sire's sleek white-blond mane strung down in his eyes and over his gritted jaw as he seethed glassy-eyed through his teeth, "MY WIFE. HURT. HEALER. NOW." Though jeweled with tears, there was something in his staggeringly cold, pale gray eyes that issued a warning of the great imprudence of argument, so the front desk clerk sent an owl back to the emergency clinic Healers at once. There was an immediate maelstrom of thundering feet in the halls.

A superior Healer, indicated by the gold trimming around her wand and bone embroidered uniform patch, dashed out into the hallway, her lime green robes billowing with her momentum. There was a fixed alert but calm glare on her face, a peach-cream complexion with light freckles on her straight, small nose, her spike-tipped mid-neck deep auburn hair flung from her eyes as she barked for a stretcher with an indeterminate European accent. Her eyes, the kindest and warmest and most brilliant of blue, fell on the man and his child as the wife and mother was lain on the stretcher moaning and writhing. It was clear to her at once that the man was not used to being reduced to requests for assistance, nor the child used to fear, and both stood there helplessly struggling.

"Mummy? Mummy?" the tiny, thin-boned boy whimpered, clambering in the way of the nurses, reaching up for his marred mother, and his father harshly drew him away with a soft snarl of, "Be quiet, Draco, and MOVE!"

The child squealed out a terrified and enraged sob; his own silver eyes were twins of his father's, but so much larger and brighter. "But father, she's dying!"

"No, she isn't." The Healer smiled placatingly, approaching them, her broad catlike lips curling compassionately upward. She spoke in a deep and textured contralto, briskly nodding. She moved over the bleeding blond woman and placed her bare hands on the woman's gashed neck as they sprinted together to the back operating room. The father was forced to pick up his toddling son and carry him as their speed increased; a numb, mask-like expression now covered his previously disturbed face. His son still wept bitterly as Odile continued, "Please be at ease, I think you brought your wife in just in time, Mr…?"

"Malfoy," the man gasped out in a strangely breathless, hissing voice. "Lucius Malfoy." For a fleeting instant his eyes again betrayed a helplessness with which he was obviously unaccustomed.

"And your wife, Lucius, is…?"

"Narcissa." An added strain to this name's utterance.

"Alright. Dr. Odile Renard, if you please. I will see to it that your son…Draco, is it?….can see his mama alive by morning."

The man had stopped moving and was staring at her unabashedly, with a candidness that again struck her as something far from customary to his personality. "Odile?" he breathed. "….So. You married Victor after all." Considerable, smooth contempt now gathered about his words, and disdain began to contaminate his hapless fear. He resumed his speedy glide in the direction of the floating stretcher alongside which she ran, because Odile had not even slowed down when he had abruptly halted.

The mediwitch gave a small groaning sigh mid-examination of the patient named Narcissa; excellent, she had run into one of the English Ministry of Magic colleagues of her husband, an internationally renowned transfiguration scholar from Marseilles, France, in the middle of an emergency job. "Sir, with all due respect, I haven't the time…."

Her moon blue eyes snapped up reprovingly, but then she really saw the disheveled man before her. His hair had been much shorter back then, his body less firmly built.…he had been but a boy of sixteen or seventeen, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the year she came as an exchange student from Beauxbatons Academy of France. But those eyes were the same—elfish somehow, large but ever narrowed as though in scrutiny or suspicion, and a very pale, very cold gray.

"Lucius? Oh my God, Lucius Malfoy. You have a child now too…how amazing." Briefly, she turned those luminous azure eyes on the child in the cold, authoritarian man's arms and smiled, and managed thus to derive a smile from his fearful little cherubin face. He was as fair and elegantly formed as his father, a smaller, weaker-boned, and more innocent variant of the pater familias, she plainly saw—though emotionally perhaps a bit more demonstrative, as, in response to her smile, he began to reach out his little round arms toward her.

It struck her poignantly of her own husband and their brilliant, extroverted, often slightly precocious seven-year-old son, Alexis. She squeezed the child Draco's tiny pale fingers once before his father softly scolded him for his "sauciness" and yanked him away. Hesitantly, the boy buried his tear-streaked face in his father's neck and nestled against him, causing Lucius to shiver as though something itchy or dirty had touched his skin, but, with the present company, he did not repel his son. It was almost as if the child knew this and was taking advantage of Odile's tempering presence to be able to touch his father.

Odile frowned and elaborated, "I er…wasn't paying attention when you told me who you….please have a seat outside these doors.." Odile gestured at the uncomfortable stiff mahogany chairs outside the intensive care unit. "When your wife is better, we must catch up…"

"Of course," Lucius murmured haughtily, staring fixedly over her head, his nostrils frozen into a displeased upward curl, occasionally tugging his head to the side with a little snarl of his pursed lips when his son clung too hard and tightly to his hair. "When you have healed her…Dr. Renard."

Odile nodded once more and leaned over the woman's face, into her ear. She spoke slowly and clearly, stroking the injured woman's icy hair gently. "Narcissa, you must breathe with me, when I say, and try to focus on breathing instead of the pain. It looks as though you have been mauled by some manner of large serpent?" She looked up at the father again, for an explanation.

Lucius Malfoy shook his head once, sharply. "Not exactly. We have many pet snakes, but none capable of this. It was made to appear that way, but she….She ah…did this to…to herself." He spoke with a diplomat's perfect restraint, but his voice still shook and was very, very tight. "My…son saw it."

Odile stiffened almost imperceptibly, staring at the child's trembling little back. "…I see. There are several complicated curses that can cause this kind of damage, especially when self-directed. Fortunately, all of them are healable when given attention within a certain frame of time. Narcissa is very lucky that your son discovered her when he did." She was aiming her wand at the woman's throat now, as if welding together small patches of skin to tide her over till proper magical surgical procedures were undertaken behind the operating room doors. Narcissa Malfoy moaned softly.

Lucius Malfoy visibly flinched at this sight, and at the Odile's open, albeit tactful, acknowledgment that his toddler son, rather than himself, had discovered his wife on the brink of successful suicide. On his formidably controlled face, however, it looked more like a nervous tic under his left eye than a twinge of guilt. Were it not a kink of her imagination, the mediwitch thought she perhaps saw him holding the child, Draco, an inch closer to his chest.

And so Odile's heart softened once more. "Mr. Malfoy…Lucius…be at ease now. I am going to take your wife into this room and bring her back to us. You have my word." And, flourishing her wand briskly at the stretcher, she forced Narcissa back through the double doors of the St. Mungo's operating room, leaving Malfoy and his small trembling legacy alone in the waiting room.

"He had heard the one from his mother about how he was younger and his father burned his ass because his dad didn't know how warm to make the bath water for babies. His mother had (laughingly) told him that he was dropped into the water after he broke out into screams. He could've drowned (but no, he didn't believe his father would have let him drown). And his mother had (laughingly) told him that his father was sick to his stomach over it, literally sick, puked into a trash can—over the guilt of burning his baby's ass and almost being stupid enough to drown him because he was such an inadequate parent that couldn't even bathe his child." –from Happy Hour by B-K

Dr. Renard found the father and son still seated where she had left them, after a long toiling night's work of countercurses and old-fashioned Muggle stitchwork. This Narcissa Malfoy had certainly intended never to reawaken when she had turned her wand at her own throat; her curses had been multifaceted, exceedingly, deceptively complex. Precisely what breed of misery veiled itself within the ice crystal palace of Malfoy Manor?

Lucius Malfoy was as subdued as before, exuding chilly, pretended control over his environment, sitting with impatient regality in the farthest mahogany waiting room chair. His arms were folded across his dark-clad chest like those of a mirthless, irritable genie. Hair still in long, wild platinum blond disarray, clothes still bloodstained, he seemed particularly put out by his own disheveled state, when witches and wizards most likely far below his social and economic standing bustled past from one room to the next looking twice as collected and polished. Once again, Odile was struck with the realization that this was an experience with which he was highly unaccustomed.

The little boy, Draco, wandering the perimeters of the waiting room unchecked and ignored, had withdrawn to the comforting imaginary world of infants and toddlers, in which no state or mood was permanent, and he was certain that his mummy would walk right out of the operating room sometime soon as though utterly unmarred—as though it had all been a particularly lurid nightmare. Odile was very grateful to the higher powers that she could at least in good part provide such an end for the child.

Presently the boy paused, tottered over to her and smiled the impish smile of an infant accustomed to being doted upon for even small feats of cuteness and precocity—but not by the parent with which he was now stuck. In Odile he seemed to be seeking a temporary Narcissa, while the intolerable indifference of his father had to also be borne. "H'llo, thah," he squeaked saucily up at the mediwitch. "Fix mummy?"

Odile grinned at this query, amused by the boy's nerve when he was not so distraught. It reminded her once again of her own son, who was due with his father any time now; Victor and Alexis regularly came over during Victor's lunch hour to eat with her, as, with her long hours in the hospital emergency room, it was often their only way of seeing her all day.

"I did, indeed, Draco," she presently replied. "Give your mummy a day to rest, and you can come visit her this evening. And give her some time to feel happier, too, because that won't be fixed quite so quickly. That will take a lot of time. But it's not your fault that she is so sad. Sometimes ladies get things called chemicals in their brains a little mixed up for a short while after they have babies, and it is called post-partum depression."

"Is that why mummy doesn't pick me up sometimes when I cry?" the boy piped in curiously, wrinkling his miniscule nose as though something smelled rancid. "Mummy gives me lots of Hunny-dewwks choc'lates when she doesn't pick me up, though," he added in her defense, with a slightly vicious little scowl.

Odile forcefully restrained herself from sweeping the child up into a maternal embrace. "Yes, sweetheart, that is why. But nothing you could have done could have made it better or worse—so don't be upset at yourself. And I am sure mummy and daddy would rather you be born than not." She glanced over at Lucius when stating this, musing upon how attuned he was to this conversation.

Draco twisted his fragile little neck backwards to observe his father as well. He looked a little frightened, but mostly his big gray eyes glazed over as he stared at Lucius, and they were disturbingly unexpectant of any real response.

Lucius was in fact watching them closely, almost feverishly, his eyes glittering brightly again. "…Indeed," he muttered tersely, after a long silence.

Odile smiled softly at the untamed expression, seeming to disarm her old schoolmate, for he lowered his arctic, narrow gaze again to the floor. He gave no further response, and the French mediwitch was slightly disappointed in the miserly manner of his compassion towards his child. Perhaps he was merely stressed over his wife's condition…But she had just assured them both of Narcissa's health, had she not?

Draco cocked his towhead at Odile, tiny pink nose once again a-crinkle, then his great gray eyes roved. He let out a sudden squeal of glee and rocketed off after a passing stretcher, on which lay a cranky-looking wizard whose left arm had been turned into a large green slug, its slimy hindside dragging across the hospital floor. "YOU BUST, BIG FAHHT SLUGGIE!" he shrieked, giggling, jubilant with the news of his mother's renewed health. He kicked at the arm-invertebrate, possessing, at the moment, an angelic face with a devil's expression. "YOU BUST! ZILLION FAHHT SLUGGIES NOW! SQUISH!"

CRUNCH CRUNCH! Take that, snow, you insubordinate BASTARD! HA!

Odile barked with giggles but then covered her mouth, muffling her unprofessional laughter, while Lucius came fiercely to life, sweeping out of his seat, gliding over to his son, and scooping him up just as Draco lost his footing in a pus-like trail of snail mucus. The child screeched another triumphant laugh and spread his little arms wide while his father, whose lips had gone thin and white, returned him to the waiting room cubicle. "Lookit, fathah, see? SEE? WATCH ME WATCH ME! I busted the sluggie!" His eyes narrowed comically in his young face as he mulled something over, then poised a chubby hand at the departing slime-encased individual as though holding a wand. "CRUCIO, SLUGGIE, CRUCI— "

And Lucius exploded.

"YOU STOP THAT this INSTANT! For God's sake, we don't SAY those spells, and you KNOW that!" It was no louder than a whisper, but it was so ferocious that Draco at once fell to terrified silence. He shriveled into a ball in his father's arms.

"But fathah, you just…."

More calmly now, but in a saccharine, patient chirp, "Son, we do NOT SAY Unforgivable Curses."

"But," and little Draco, eyes flooding with fresh tears, parried with a tone for which the term "whiny" was a polite understatement, "Fathaaaaaah, I thought …that one time when you showed me that thingieeeee with the house elf and it went all stiff and wrigglyyyyyy…"

"ShhhhhhhhhQUIET, I will buy you a new trainer broom if you're QUIET!" Lucius grabbed his son's shoulders and shook him once, so violently that Odile winced. Draco went limp under the iron grip but shut up. The confusion of pleasure at the pending present and terror at his father's rage grew audible: He let out a frustrated squeak, cheeks pinking, and brooded at his father's silver serpent cufflinks. The elder Malfoy glared restlessly round the waiting room. His eyes fell in an almost paranoid fashion on Odile once again and she swallowed. "Quiet," he mumbled again, still looking at her.

"Lucius," she breathed soothingly, "perhaps we should go clean Draco up while I wait for my husband and son to come visit me."

With the hand not occupied in clutching his child, Malfoy rummaged, with a frenzy barely concealed by stoicism, through a sort of black leather diaper bag with the initials "NBM" encased in bronze on the hook. He spurned the Healer, back turned haughtily to her. He growled at the mucus smearing all over his rich violet-black robes, as Draco gained a firmer grip on him. "THANK you, Odile, but I can…."

"Please."

The slug-slime-soaked toddler watched and waited, gazing anxiously between parent and doctor, over his father's shoulder. He gnawed on his tiny, petulant lip.

Finally Lucius buckled. Visibly. His shoulders shuddered once and drooped. A strong, elegant hand massaged a temple. His back was still towards her when he spoke again. "Odile," he sighed, and she got the feeling his voice was suddenly very soft to hide any loss of emotional control, "how does one DO this?"

And she knew he didn't mean washing off a child, or scolding a child for using expletives and curses, but rather something bigger and more intimidating and all-encompassing: being a father, even being a dad. Being what her husband, whom Lucius despised, whom Lucius many, MANY years ago had wanted to BE, clearly was to her own son. But he would never ask that explicitly, nor ask even vaguely, like this, again. She knew the proud, chilly Slytherin boy from Hogwarts at least that well.

"With devotion and practice," she breathed back, approaching cautiously, and resting a finger…just a pinky finger, for his pride was THAT sensitive….on his shoulder. "Let me show you. Come back to the operating washroom. We can use the sink and soap back there. Draco can have some purple plastic gloves. Would you like purple plastic gloves, Draco?"

The little boy gave a sound between a coo and a squeal. "Coooooool….."

"She was never supposed to leave me alone with him," Lucius hissed tartly through his teeth, as though the child could somehow not hear the conversation between the two adults—as though the child could not see the brooding expression radiating off his face. "My father never dealt with ME. It's just not done. Not in MY family. It's unnecessary. Why DID Narcissa do this to ME?" He threw her a heavy-hooded expression through his moonlight blond mane, a sighing look, anticipating that she would commiserate.

But the warped nature of this train of thought made Odile blink, stunned.

Why did your wife punish YOU with HER intolerable depression and misery? With HER suffering? Why did she PUNISH you by giving you time with your ONLY CHILD?

Then she recovered. "Ah…oui, yes, I see that the surgeons have just now left…" She tugged gently on the disgruntled patriarch's velvet robe sleeve; it was warm and soft and she marveled, as she steered him into the washroom, at how a man with so many standoffish, intimidating traits could yet seem so pleasant upon physical contact. She marveled at how, were she not happily married, she might still harbor some sort of lurid attraction for the glacier named Lucius Malfoy. But then she remembered the sickly weaving of serpent and skull that still branded the flesh of his hidden forearm like some skin disease….and despite all the rumors, despite his pious pleas of "helpless to the Imperius Curse, innocent bystander" to the Ministry…. Odile had always sensed a darkness that emanated from Lucius, a readiness to hurl spite….the kind of hazard that is beautiful and hideous at once, that both thrills and terrifies, like first sight of a particularly violent but distant storm, or a cobra recoiling in the underbrush by one's bared ankle….

And so the goosebumps of pleasure brought by his presence always replaced themselves with those of foreboding, and the matter was once again closed: They could never be close, not even as friends. Victor had been a Slytherin in his own days as an exchange student to Hogwarts from Beauxbatons Academy. Yet he had flatly refused to accept Lucius's clearing of the charger of Death Eater by Cornelius Fudge only a year or so ago, and while Monsieur Renard could never "forbid" his wife from doing as she well pleased, Odile knew her husband was a wise and unwaveringly ethical man, and so, on this matter, she heeded his instincts.

The washbasin was like a large stainless steel bathtub raised to the level of an adult's arms. Odile reached for the golden faucet and a warm flow of water spilled down into the basin. She gestured at Lucius to put his son down in the edge. Malfoy did so; Draco stripped his shoes and gooey shirt at once and squealed happily, kicking his legs and splashing both adults with a rascally grin. Odile laughed appreciatively and lightly splashed him back.

Lucius's jaw jutted, but he wiped the water off his face and reached for the hot faucet. "It seems a bit cold," he mumbled, twisting it, but the moment the steaming liquid poured into the pool and touched the child's skin, Draco let out a shriek of pain and clutched pleadingly to his father's neck.

Lucius turned the water off at once, his body rigid, his face the epitome of humiliation. He felt the water and drew his hand back quickly, scalded. "God damn it," he hissed. Odile had never felt so sorry for a parent and child in all her life.

"The plumbing here is absolutely archaic," she crooned. "I'm sorry, I should have warned you." She dipped her hands into the basin and stirred the water until it became tepid once again.

Lucius grunted but otherwise remained silent; Draco, for his part, did not let go of his father for several moments, until the water had cooled. Then his fair, bare back, blotchy red from the burning water, eased back down, and he smiled up at the adults more tentatively, his enormous pale eyes watchful.

Lucius stared at his son for a long awkward moment before pulling together a very small smile in return.

Draco squealed again and splashed again, more gently, then watched and waited again.

His father's smile broadened, and what was more, Lucius didn't wipe the water off this time.

So Draco splashed again, with an impudent screech of laughter, and as forcefully as he could muster. Lucius was now soaked but still smiling—even chuckling. Odile rolled up her sleeves and seized a bar of antibacterial soap, trying not to let her own grin seem too obvious.

"Good," she murmered, "very good. Hold still, little one." She massaged lather through the towhead and behind the tiny pink ears, deriving a ticklish shudder and giggle from the littlest Malfoy.

"I like bahhths! They smell GOOD!" the child bellowed.

"Good God, Draco, not so loudly," Lucius haughtily retorted, but he was still laughing.

"M-kay, fathah." Draco giggled clumsily as his entire head was rubbed full of soap suds. "I said bahhths smell good," he repeated in an exaggerated whisper, and this time both adults laughed, and sincerely. The child beamed and leaned against his father's chest with another almost experimental giggle.

"You should take over," Odile inserted into the opportune tender moment, handing the soapbar and a soft sponge to Lucius.

"I'm sorry?" he said in a strangled tone, dangling both items as though they had been sneezed upon. He looked oddly terrified. His son did not move; Draco's great eyes had drooped peacefully shut.

"I said you should take over. He'd prefer his papa to a stranger, I am sure." Odile stood. She bent over and breathed, "Gently, patiently, that is how one does it, old friend. You are his world."

Don't abandon or abuse that fact.

Lucius gave no indication of whether or not he heard the mediwitch, but regardless, he set out bathing his child at once. The occasional murmer of "lift your arms" or "now, rinse," punctuated the silence between father and son, but other than that only the sound of gently sloshing water and a child's yawning accompanied Odile's ears out of the washroom.

Fifteen minutes passed before all hell broke loose. Odile was perched on a cushioned green chenille armchair that matched her Healer's robes, smack in the middle of the nurse's station, reviewing some old patient records during a lag in emergency calls when her husband and son arrived for lunch.

Victor Renard glided like a black swan on water, his silken ebony hair pulled back into a sleek queue and topped with a bronze fox-engraved circlet on his forehead, his face the sculpted, warm olive of a Marseillaise Frenchman. His entrance into St. Mungo's front lobby, midnight blue silk robes billowing, always drew a crowd of doe-eyed young nurses, despite their knowledge of his devoted marriage to the Chief Mediwitch on staff. As ever, grasping his energetic son Alexis's hand, he waved at them all with a charming little collected smile, his dark brown eyes sparkling and his trim black moustache curling up.

Then he bent and mumbled at his child to wave too, his grin broadening. Alexis, a carbon copy of his father at seven, aside having a short untidy haircut and his mother's radiant blue eyes, obliged, with great gusto, giggling loudly, and all the lady nurses tittered dotingly at their little seven-year-old mascot before the Renard men slid into the welcome nurse's station.

Odile gave a sigh of mock exasperation, an auburn eyebrow cocked as she stood to greet them. "Here comes my beloved Trouble and my beloved Trouble, Jr."

"MAMA!" the boy howled, rushing her with wide-spread arms. He pointed at the brown sack his father carried. "J'avais choisit votre…."

"In English while we are in England, my Little Helper," she corrected him with a kiss to his cheeks. "It is the polite thing to do."

Victor grunted and nodded his agreement, with a small wry smile. "He is just eager to share, darling," he rumbled, and Odile grinned back at her husband, nodding and winking knowingly.

Alexis glanced between both parents before scowling in thought, and starting up again in English that was only slightly accented, "Ah peecked your lunch at the deli today, mama. Your very favorite. Ham and cheese and eggs sandwich!"

"Why, Lexi, my love, how very thoughtful. And your English just keeps improving, chere." She smoothed his black bangs out of his eyes. Alexis changed into a fox and back into a human with an impish snicker, completely disheveling his hair again.

Odile tsked at him and ruffled his bangs now, assisting him in his rebellious appearance. Then she took the sack from his father, who was now softly chuckling.

Still laughing, Victor leaned over Alexis and kissed his wife deeply. The boy grinned contentedly up at them and clutched the hem of both their robes territorially and confidently as they chatted. Something caught his eye and he blinked and strayed across the station to investigate, occasionally glancing back and smiling at his parents.

Victor sat down on a stool by his wife's cushy green chair. "You asked me to order some wood sorrel for your home experimental store?" he murmured. "I added tomatoes to the order because that way Alexis and I can coerce you to make our favorite tomato basil soup. And since there is a possibility you may be expecting a er…." He placed a be-ringed finger on her stomach and beamed, turning the slightest shade of pink.

"Oh, my sneaky Slytherin love," she crooned back with a mischievous second wink. "Very well, I will succumb to your request that I…."

The sound of small, scuffling footsteps suddenly halting directly in front of them made both their heads turn.

Odile blinked in shock; the toddler Draco Malfoy, freshly swathed in borrowed green Healer robes, was standing in front of her, clinging to her own son's robe sleeve, grinning wickedly up at all of them.

With them both, she recognized a third child who had strayed into the station, a boy with green eyes and curly strawberry blond hair, Haylin something-or-another, around Alexis's age; she had mended his broken arm earlier that morning and his older brother Aidan and father Alastair were sitting in the waiting room while his bone-growing potion took its effects. Apparently the two visiting children had taken to Alexis; they seemed quite smug that they had obtained V.I.P. status in the illustrious wizarding hospital through association with her son, who seemed to be leading them about on a guided tour of the nurse's station.

Haylin shuffled his feet and grinned around, dimples forming on his round little face. Draco continued to clutch to Alexis and loudly proclaimed, "I caught the black foxie! I caught him!"

Odile barked a laugh, but Victor stiffened. "That child looks the spitting image of a Malfoy," he spoke in distaste.

Draco shrank back from the tall dark man glaring down at him.

"He is," the mediwitch nodded, placing a tempering hand on her husband's arm. "And he IS a CHILD, too. Draco, darling, your father will have kittens if he sees you've gone missing."

"Fortunately," a breathless voice issued from behind them all, as the very man in question strode up, "I seem to have relocated the little rapscallion." Lucius's face seemed to be struggling between rage and a determined sort of patience as he swept Draco away from Alexis, who blinked in puzzlement and turned to his own parents for an explanation.

Victor's look of vague dislike had become one of unabashed hatred as Lucius presented himself.

Lucius's expression, on which patience seemed to have triumphed over anger, now reverted to cold fury at the sight of this. A squawking nurse behind him was telling him to get out of the unauthorized area, but Odile held up her hand and shook her head sharply at her subordinate, who sighed and walked away. Lucius remained silent, fingers digging into his son's tiny shoulder as he bent over Draco. "….Victor," he finally snapped, with a sharp, guarded little nod. "Small world, indeed." The temperature in his eyes was subzero.

Draco looked terrified; it was as if he knew by heart the little warning signs, the cues, to his father's temper. He trembled bodily.

Still Alexis stared rapidly from one parent to the other; Odile held her hand out to him and drew him out of the line of fire. The boy Haylin followed her son, looking rather confused, unaware as to the years of discord between the two Slytherin alumni staring each other down at high noon.

"Oh, God, Lucius, what did you do?" Victor purred deeply and derisively, his handsome tan face twisted into a sneer nearly as hateful as that of the man he addressed. He chuckled airily at Lucius's disgracefully unkempt state. "Performed a halfway avada kedavra on someone, did you? And then your conscience annoyed you into bringing your victim in?"

"As a matter of fact," Malfoy snapped back, voice spiking, "my wife is ill, you asinine, half-witted… Frenchman." His lips curled into a snarl as he honed in for the jugular, his tone dipping back to a cool, weaving hiss-whisper. "Don't tell me you're still farting about with those trivial little transfiguration theories they've got cooking up for the International Confederation of Wizards. Oh, dear me, you ARE. Well then, how on EARTH dare you insult an aristocrat of some REAL standing?" If it were possible, the way he spat and smirked at the elder Renard made his straight white canines seem to elongate into snakelike fangs.

Draco's cheeks flamed and he hid behind his father; he did not really understand what Lucius was saying, but the scene being caused seemed to register fully.

Lucius continued unabated, "OH, and DO let me guess, Victor, you STILL don't keep house elves at Renard Estate because you choose to sidestep the 'enslavement' of a lesser species, correct? RIDICULOUS. How much more thoroughly can you insult your Pureblooded heritage?" He sniffed, and flashed a belittling leer, though the fingers of both his hands tightened around an invisible weapon, a wand or a cane of some sort, which he had evidently left at home and which he plainly itched to now wield. His nostrils flared with the final verbal blow. "Your poor wife, she deserves SO much better. But then again, Odile's charity has always been her downfall, hasn't it?"

The child Alexis made an indignant noise in his throat and looked to Victor.

Odile was between the men before her husband could so much as raise his wand, which, judging by Victor's suddenly livid facial expression, was precisely what he intended to do. "Please, you two, not in the hospital…" Her blue eyes glimmered with understated anger.

"MY WIFE chose me out of love, not pity, Malfoy!" Victor snarled around her, though her presence, and the frightened stares of the three children, had already placated him, unlike Malfoy. "The only difference between our statures and credentials was my REFUSAL to cheer on the coming of the Heir of Slytherin and the death of COUNTLESS Muggle-borns!"

"And a puzzling refusal it was," Malfoy seethed openly, slate eyes ablaze. "DISGUSTING! Perhaps the Sorting Hat is not ALWAYS infallible! You should have stayed at Beauxbatons, Renard, and eschewed cherished traditions THERE! Does your wife know of how you couldn't keep your filthy paws off of MINE back in our schooldays, back when I favored Odile instead? Or was Narcissa Black just another 'fling' for the handsome French visitor?"

"Fathah …" Draco squeaked. "I'm sorry I snuck off…I want to go home now…"

"Be QUIET, Draco," his father snarled, without even looking down.

Victor had gone stiff and stony, regarding Lucius like a maggot wriggling on the end of an otherwise fresh red apple. A small smile crept up his lips. He chuckled breathily. "You fool. You never had a chance with Odile. NEVER. She knows good from evil FAR too clearly. Look how you disregard your own CHILD." Then he looked down and saw HIS child's face, and his gaze softened. With visible effort, he backed off. "I spoke out of turn. I apologize. Really, I do. My kindest regards to Narcissa." He reached down and put a hand gently on the back of Alexis's neck, and the boy, who looked very frightened, started to relax.

The ensuing silence was deafening, and not bereft of considerable stares from hospital staff and patients passing by.

Lucius looked as though every fiber in his being were restraining him from launching bodily onto Victor. A vein in his forehead throbbed. "Come, Draco. We're going to visit your mother now," he murmured through his teeth. "That is, if her DOCTOR approves?" He cast a staggering, betrayed glare upon Odile, as though she had somehow deliberately lured him into this humiliating confrontation with her husband.

She nodded silently, the compassion and apology in the look she returned just as strong as was his rage. If he noticed, he gave no intimation. He lifted his toddler harshly into his arms, turned, and stalked out of sight. The last glimpse of Draco's face was one of wide-eyed abandonment.

Odile sighed deeply, tossed a displeased look at her husband, and followed the Malfoys out, hoping to lead them to their destination.

Victor cringed at her disappearing green form. "Oh dear. Lexi, I AM sorry for that….tense moment just now," he breathed, patting his son's back. "That was terribly inappropriate of me. We should not take advantage of someone's weak moments to belittle and be cruel to them. Remember that."

Alexis glanced at his new friend Haylin, who shrugged back, basically unshaken, and smiled puckishly. Then he nodded gravely at his father. "That's alright, papa. But we must get mama more of her red flowers to make her happy. And we must make HER some tomato basil soup."

"You are too young to worry about making everyone else happy, Alexis," Victor said soothingly.

"…Please, papa? I WANT to."

"…Alright, son. That is a very good idea." Victor stared past his child's head, where the Malfoys had recently disappeared, for a very long moment. "I am very proud of you, Alexis. Don't ever forget that, either."

The boy beamed. "Okay, papa," he said.

Upstairs, Lucius Malfoy stroked his wife Narcissa's hand while she wept hysterically about her act of "great selfishness," and Draco Malfoy hid under his mother's hospital bed and wept alone.

The Christmas before the Goblet of Fire

Odile Renard sat in the farthest private padded cell of St. Mungo's making her experimental Healer's potions. The white floor was scattered with brilliant colors and textures of various herbs and blooms as she brewed. Her heart was lighter and her mind clearer than they had been in many months. It was Christmas time and she had been released from the hospital for excellent progress; her family was arriving any moment to take her home.

In the middle of crushing a modest red flower between her fingers and mixing it into a small vat of lemon-scented warm water, she heard a sound at the door and looked up, expecting either an orderly or one of her children, and instead beheld Lucius Malfoy. He was wearing his long dried-blood-red robes and black serpent-detailed overcoat of custom, and his silver blond waterfall of hair hung sleekly about his coolly composed face. "Hello," was all he said, raising a supercilious eyebrow, as though she, rather than he, were the unexpected intruder. He didn't move any closer.

Odile stared back, thunderstruck.

At Malfoy's heel was a blustery looking old man in a pinstripe suit, who, it seemed, was leading a group of wealthy and formidable-looking visitors going on down the hall and out of the vicinity. The man murmured something in his ear, glancing almost fearfully at Odile, and Lucius shook his head once, impatiently, muttered, "I doubt it, Cornelius," and made a "shoo"-ing motion. The short, vague looking fellow in pinstripes nodded in bewilderment—an expression which rather suited him—and stumbled off.

Odile's lips twitched. She nodded in return, sinking into one of two white hospital chairs in her room. "Come sit, Lucius," she said. She folded her hands in her lap dignifiedly, as if this were her office and not a padded cell for the insane. She did not ask why he was here—not yet.

Malfoy obeyed, apparently utterly taken by her front. Like an interviewee for a prestigious position at a corporation or firm, he sat, crossed one leg over the other, restlessly uncrossed them, and finally leaned forward, hands clasped in a gesture that mirrored her own. His posture was impeccably straight, which could not possibly be comfortable, though on an individual like him, it might be natural. Still, if she knew no better, she might have thought him very ill at ease.

"I am here," Lucius fairly croaked, working, she could tell, for his usual bored drawl, "with the Minister of Magic and his colleagues, being wheedled into donating a sum of my private income to St.Mungo's—a department of my choice. As I really haven't made up my mind yet, and they are becoming tiresome with their clinging and flattery, I saw your name on the door of this room and decided to escape." The faintest of smirks formed on his smooth, pale features; apparently he thought he had cracked a joke. He twisted the head of his snake cane in a circular motion, watching her over its tip.

Odile grinned appreciatively at him, and Lucius leaned back just slightly in his chair, his breathing a bit more even. She inclined her head towards him. "I am glad to hear that I am still considered a comforting presence to a dear old schoolmate."

Lucius stared the former illustrious Mediwitch up and down and then nodded, once. "Yes," he said, simply.

She got the oddest feeling he was waiting for HER to continue breeding conversation, and eventually casually trip across the subject of his visit, even though it was clear as crystal that he had something very specific and very urgent on his mind; there was no real reason why Lucius Malfoy needn't dismiss Cornelius Fudge and his associates, with his political and financial clout, and simply tell them he would Floo call his fiscal decision to the office on Monday.

So Odile kept talking, and resumed the crushing of red flowers into her little potions vat. "Victor and Alexis are coming to bring me home for the holidays. And where is Draco? He is such a darling boy; school is out, so I would have expected to see him trailing you just about everywhere. He does admire you so, and he has gotten very chummy with my little Margaret, who should be coming here today, too…."

Lucius's posture stiffened again. His eyes widened slightly. Oh, alors. BINGO. "He will be staying at the school for the holidays."

"Oh. Well…..is that HIS choice?"

Lucius hesitated. Then, very slowly, very carefully, he took Odile's hand.

She smiled.

His face twitched.

"What is the matter, Lucius?"

His throat closed. He spoke in a carefully cool, dry tone. But the words…"I….think I've failed. What you showed me when Draco was two. When Narcissa…I think I've performed poorly at it since then. What maddens me is your son seems better for the wear even though you are locked up in a padded cell. How the bloody hell is that?"

She barked a laugh, instantaneously, causing his hand to snap away from hers. "'Maddens,' eh? No pun intended?"

Lucius's lip curled suddenly, as if he realized how foolish he had been to try and discuss this matter with a woman long lost to insanity. A deep crease formed between his eyebrows. "Good Lord. Never mind." He made to stand, and quickly.

She seized his hand back into hers. She peeled off his back glove, staring at him unblinkingly. Lucius squirmed, but there was a nurse just outside the door, and it would be very obvious indeed who would be the one causing Odile distress if he upset her by resisting her touch.

Then his long-ago schoolmate and his wife's once-savior shoved something into his hands. A strange flower he'd never seen before—one of the red ones she was grinding into her potion. "Wood sorrel. It means joy. A mother's tenderness. A parent's affection. See how it stays bright and thriving? Even now?"

He watched her, eyes narrow and alarmed. It became suddenly quite clear how lucid Odile Renard still, on rare occasions, could be. "What?"

"Try, Lucius." She spoke again, and it was almost like an order. "Keep trying for him. Your son will know it if you are trying. My Lexi is 'better for the wear' because he knows that I try with all my heart, when I can, when I am awake and ….present. That, even more importantly, trying for him is the most important thing in the world to me. He doesn't care if St. Mungo's calls me crazy. He knows I would die for him."

Lucius Malfoy's face was feral. For a moment there was only the sound of patients humming lonely carols out in the corridor, and the crinkling of tinsel as a mediwitch's assistant decorated a plastic Christmas tree nearby. Then he spoke. "You have NO right to say that to me. NONE." His fingers went rigid in her grasp. He attempted imperial sangfroid. It looked more like he was slightly constipated.

"Oh, but I do. Draco will be living in the same world as my two children when he becomes a man. What you are doing right now affects all three of them, and, thus, me."

"You want to talk herbs and flowers?" His lips went thin and white. His voice never once rose above a soft hiss. "Let's do it in alphabetical order, then. Oh, Severus Snape and I swap potion stories all the time, you see. Abatina: fickleness. Agnus castus: coldness. Basil: hatred. Creeping cereus: horror. Cypress: Death. Despair. Mourning. MY father, Abraxus, taught ME these things, and it takes EVERY OUNCE of resolve I HAVE not to thrust them down on MY son. Do you understand that? You think it stops with the children of TODAY, Odile? It goes back for EONS. There's no point: Your damned wood sorrel is going to wilt, just like MINE did. Get the bloody hell OFF me." Savagely, he tore his hand free of hers. And then he stood there staring at her again, the same helplessness he'd exhibited eleven years ago to her when she was not a patient, but a Healer, in St. Mungo's.

"My father tried to kill me when I was ten," Odile admitted into the silence. She spoke very calmly, with the clarity of a surgeon. The only evidence of her instability was the way in which she sporadically flicked her wrists at her sides, as though perpetually unscrewing very stubborn bottle caps. "He thought a Dark Wizard had possessed my body. He used to creep the halls of the mansion of my childhood muttering to the portraits of my ancestors about how my mother and I were conspiring to control him with the Imperius Curse, to frame him for something and land him in Azkaban. They took him here—to a cell very near my own—a week later. Believe me, he was adept at teaching the lessons you say you learned. You are not the only child of abuse in this world, old friend."

Lucius's jaw tensed. He watched Odile's flicking hands as though fascinated. His cheeks gained uncharacteristic ruddiness, and he did not speak.

"Happy Christmas, Lucius," Odile breathed. Her eyes were as un-patronizingly, stunningly kind, as tender, as they had been that night when his wife had been on the brink of self-imposed death. Alexis Renard's mother sat in her white hospital shift with food stains down the front, with her disheveled hair, and still, though Draco Malfoy's father stood over her, perfectly groomed and imperial and authoritarian, SHE reigned.

He ground his teeth till they ached. His nostrils flared. He suddenly hated her. "Happy Christmas." He turned sharply on his heel and left the room. He neither acknowledged Alexis and Margaret Renard's furtive greetings nor Victor Renard's scathing glare as he passed them in the hall. But he did see a small bouquet of wood sorrel and forget-me-nots in both children's hands, while their father dragged along their mother's still-empty suitcase.

And Lucius Malfoy, with his crisp, arrogant strides, reached the front desk, and the same dyed blonde Welcoming Witch of eleven years ago sat there, blinking benignly, perplexedly, at him through her thick bifocals.

There was no way she could have discerned the feeling in his chest somewhat akin to a swarming hornet's nest. Enough stings, enough standing there gawking at her, enough staring at the one little bloom of wood sorrel that the little girl, Margaret, had accidentally dropped by his foot, and suddenly a fierce impulse seized the lord of Malfoy Manor. He whetted his lips, and opened his mouth to try and speak.

Nothing.

He tried again.

Nothing.

Finally he cleared his throat, and the Welcoming Witch smiled broadly and leaned forward, pressing her hearing trumpet to her ear as Lucius pledged, "Cornelius Fudge will be in touch with you sometime this summer about a considerable sum of galleons that will be forwarded to THIS particular wing of St. Mungo's…in my name. Is that clear?"

The old lady's eyes bugged like those of a pug dog. "Oh….oh gracious ME, sir, what generosity, Mr….?"

"Malfoy."

"Mr. Malfoy, very well! Happy Christmas to you, sir!"

Lucius Malfoy did not answer, but instead clutched tightly to his snake cane, continuing to the entryway of St. Mungo's. The fallen wood sorrel bloom was directly in his path. He sucked in his cheekbones, and neither picked it up nor trampled it.

He stepped over it, and kept walking.


	3. Chapter 3

The Freckles on My Face:

Chapter 3

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content. Near the final chapters of this fanfiction, there is an ALLUSION to a past rape. It is not detailed, but it is nevertheless enough that the reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read that passage. Aside that, this fiction is for a PG-suited audience.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy's parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

The brief allusion to the Malfoy family heritage comes from a theory by the author Emif, who can be contacted at http/emif. Many thanks to her for sharing her Hogwarts Founders theories!

O God, hah. This chapter needs so much refinement, but I seized a free day during a full time graduate school college schedule to get two chapters written at once. FEAR the haphazard third chapter of heinous awfulness (as awfulness IS a word shifty eyes ). But yeah, be gentle, it's an experimental fiction, really. I don't have as much invested in it as in Wood Sorrell and Dragon Pox. But someday I'll have time to edit/fix! So PLEASE R&R! Enjoy!

Mid-September, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 24 years before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"Epona? You're a descendant of the famous Epona? Oh, come now, Lucius."

"But it's true, Odile! Epona was the only Celt adopted by our Roman ancestors—you see, that is why all the men in my family have Classical Roman names, oh, yet a FRENCH surname, mind you, darling, because the pagan Gauls most often worshiped her, the Gauls, you know, the earliest French—and Epona was white-blond haired and gray eyed and pale—do note my complexion, there's a dear—and my people are from Wiltshire, you know, you've heard of the white horses of Wiltshire!"

"I am afraid my English history is a bit rusty," the girl of milky peach skin, freckles, and deep, smoldering auburn hair retorted. Her round face beamed with a broad, feline grin.

Her task of crossing the mossy gray stone bridge of Hogwarts became increasingly difficult as the tall, firm, slender sixth-year spread wide his Slytherin Quidditch robes, obstructing her path like some acidic green peacock. His face, pale as creamy flowers emerging from a winter frost, steadily gained pinker hues with the glee of boasting his heritage to the most fetching Beauxbatons exchange student in all the school.

"Lucius, really," the girl, Odile Guerrisseur, snorted, as he blocked her path in this absurd manner each time she attempted to pass him. "Must our conversations always begin with your bragging? And….would you move, already? I have to go to the library and get some satisfactory studying done for my Transfiguration midterms if you want me to come watch your match today."

"I do love your accent. Have I told you that I love your accent? Alsatian, or are you from Paris?" The flattery in his purring, dark tenor was so blatant that the effect upon her was one more of grudging affection than of irritation. He smirked, while flapping his green "wings" with a mixture of menace and jest. Oh, yes. He knew that his flirtatious strategy was quite…potent.

Which ought to annoy her even more, but fully did not. It made her want to kiss him.

Damn that boy.

"Provence, actually. Lucius," Odile repeated, through her teeth, her twinkling lapis eyes narrowing, "move."

"No, not until you promise you believe my story." He tossed his hair, like silver-blond thread, or like the palest, glossiest butter-cream icing, and continued to flap at her. Whoosh, swish, went the Chaser's robes. The peacock was pluming his feathers for the local hen.

Well. Some of Odile's Ravenclaw Housemates, who passed the couple, were beginning to stare. She felt a small flame rising in her cheeks but stood her ground. It was misty on the bridge, like a sheet of dew was being draped over them both, so her uniform knee-socks were becoming unpleasantly soggy.

Damn that boy.

"At least you girls don't wear knickers anymore," the boy drawled pleasantly, reading her thoughts as she gazed downward.

"Lucius!"

He laughed. It was an airy, cool sound. It felt the way a cold mist feels on a hot summer day. Chilling and refreshing all at once. Except, well, to cast all romantic metaphor aside, it was a cold day today and the precipitation was more inclement than a mist.

The nerve. "Move!"

"Make me, Mademoiselle Guerrisseur."

Well. How very mature. "Lucius, please, I'm cold. And wet in places I didn't know existed."

His eyes danced wickedly. "Okay." He stepped aside.

"Okay, then I promise I believe you," she silkily conceded, passing him. She hiked her powder blue satchelbag with its embroidered Beauxbatons crest higher on her shoulder as she sloshed onward.

"I'll have you yet, milady," he smirked, and suddenly his tone was darker and deeper. His eyes flickered with a sliver of possessiveness. He tossed his hair yet again, a gesture that he apparently presumed gallant. It was sort of cute, really—he reminded her of a little boy nonchalantly trying to remedy a crick in his neck in a ballroom full of sophisticated adults…but at the same time, he reminded her of one of those velvet-robed, brocade-vested adults with whom she had grown up. "Mark my word."

Odile turned to face him, bellowing an incredulous, womanly laugh. "What are you, a fox hound?"

"You would certainly qualify as worthy quarry." And now the Chaser's eyes were as wildly alive as slate on fire.

"Oh!" Another laugh. "Lucius, I'm touched!"

"Yes." He licked his lips. "I have that effect on women sometimes."

"Oh Good God, go practice for your Quidditch match."

"I'll win for you…Odile, O my heart….and rot like that…."

"Oh don't be pretentious, you'll be winning for yourself!" She rolled her eyes.

Lucius acquired an expression of amazement. "By GOD, you're smart. I am humbled."

"Monsieur Malfoy, I have a bet to make with you."

"Oh?" He couldn't look more delighted.

"Oui, yes. Before this day is over, if you win that match for me, as you so earnestly put it…I will make you blush."

"Ohhhh. A challenge." His petulant lips formed a large oval. His voice dipped to a bottomless register. "Are you sure the reverse will not be the case?" His eyebrows did a short acrobatics act on his forehead.

She crossed her arms and winked at him. Her eyes sparked cobalt. "Scram."

Four hours later, rain splashed in torrents down on the heads and shoulders of the students of Hogwarts as they screamed themselves hoarse for their Houses at the Slytherin-Hufflepuff match. Colorful plastic raincoats and ponchos dotted the stadium. Pandemonium reigned as young witches and wizards lit their wands and waved them like maddened green and yellow fireflies at their team of choice, casting bubble charms, bat hexes, and other spells that involved flinging objects into the air as goals were scored.

_That girl is utterly gorgeous, _Odile mused in dismay, sitting in the central bleachers of Slytherin with her fellow exchange student and best friend Victor Renard. Her attention rambled repeatedly away from the words pouring out of Victor's girlfriend, fourth-year Narcissa Black—her pouting little mouth. The girl tossed her soaked lemon sherbet-blonde hair, plastering it across her pale, thin-boned shoulder as she complained to Victor about the fact that the cheerleaders—she among them—were not given enough airtime on the field between quarters.

Odile scoffed, scanning the swelling and retreating teams in the sky for a certain Slytherin Chaser. She spotted only the scrawny, crow-like Seeker, Severus Snape, whipping his greasy black hair from his obsidian eyes and darting around in search of the Snitch. Then she caught two sturdy Beaters, the auburn-haired, wiry Alastair Daire and his close mate, the loud, burly dark-haired lad Rodolphus Lestrange. Narcissa's friend, a soft-spoken, dimpled brunette named Elizabeth, sat on the edge of their row, watching the Beaters—Daire in particular—with a look of enrapt adoration.

Odile scoffed again. Really, Liza was a sweet girl, but Ye Mighty Bridge Peacock of Epona's Line had better not expect THAT manner of reaction from HER when the match was won.

"Bless you," Victor offered, interrupting her search, his dark mocha eyes dancing with wryness.

Odile's small nose curled slightly, her freckles crinkling. She sent a scrutinizing look across her Marseillaise boy-next-door's long, handsome tan face, angular jaw, and coal black curls. She sighed and again attempted politeness—for his sake alone—towards Narcissa and her two sisters Andromeda and Bellatrix, who chattered to each other in her other ear.

"I do say," the youngest, Narcissa, warbled, tossing her plait once more, "I am sure I look frightful. Odile, you look as though you could sympathize."

Odile felt her teeth grinding. _You know you look stunning. I'd look better if your childhood friend Lucius Malfoy hadn't kept me on the bridge for an hour talking about the most archaic roots of his family tree in an attempt to get me in the sack._ "Oh do I?" she asked aloud, exhaling long and slow.

"Well, I sometimes wonder if you redheads have more trouble with split ends," the girl mused with false kindness, nodding fervently, her empty blue eyes widening. She rested a hand on Odile's sodden forearm.

Elizabeth cast a shy but dubious look at her classmate, before resuming her visual tribute to the airborne Alastair Daire.

The raven-haired sister, Bellatrix, might have been even more stunning than Narcissa had she weighed more than a hundred pounds on a water-retaining day. But her demeanor ruined all that pleasant potential anyway. She gave a shriek of laughter at Narcissa's brainless insult, between bellows of "DEATH TO HUFFLEPUFF" and screams of "HURRAH FOR RODOLPHUS, NUMBER ONE BEATER!"

Victor snickered behind his girlfriend. He blew a raspberry at Odile from behind Narcissa. "Oh, Cissy, I think Odile looks dashing," he contributed, with a grin that made little wrinkles under his eyes.

His loyalty was the only thing saving him from a complex and devious plot of revenge on Odile's part, involving shortsheeting him and giving him a whipped cream beard in his sleep, or perhaps toilet papering him from head to toe, and sending in Peeves the Poltergeist to unravel him very very quickly….

Narcissa's more tolerable sister, Andromeda, gave an amiable snorting giggle.

"Here," the light brunette seventh year interjected to silence her two little sisters. "We need to decorate you for Slytherin, my dear Miss Ravenclaw."

"I'm sorry?" Odile looked down and regarded a glittering plastic box that smelled of cucumber melon and lavender water, in Andromeda's hands. The oldest Black sister's pale face was not as pretty as those of her siblings but somehow friendlier, sweeter, and she had a dimple on one cheek. She opened the box and displayed all manner of makeup and paint. "Halloween costume sale at Gladrags," she tittered, taking out a fat green oil crayon.

Odile stuck out her tongue and giggled as Andromeda pulled her glossy brown hair into a ponytail, and pressed the crayon against the French girl's freckled skin. "Write HISS," she trilled, still giggling. Her noisemaker jingled on its chain around her neck with her laughter.

"Brilliant, my dear!" crowed the oldest Black sister, making sweeping gestures across Odile's cheeks. "Done! You are breathtaking!" She gave a golden laugh that ended with a charmingly earthy snort. "And clumsy fool that I am, I miraculously did it without poking out one of your eyes!"

The crowd suddenly erupted into roars of triumph and groans of defeat. Odile gasped and stood up, to squeals of protest from Bellatrix and Narcissa, who had been painting their nails black and red, respectively. The polish spilled, making a stinky iridescent brown river on the bleacher. Odile cringed and apologized, and was received with cold glares from her English schoolmates. She gulped and resumed her scan of the sky. Andromeda could be heard snorting at her sisters and saying something about "going to find Ted now."

For a moment Odile felt something wriggling beneath her, then, with a yelp, she was lifted onto someone's shoulders. She looked down and spotted Victor, who was humming a pleasant French bistro tune to himself. She giggled and tugged on his curls. "Merci."

"De rien." She could feel his cheeks tightening into a broad grin between her extended forearms. It tickled. She looked up again, deciding that the whipped cream and toilet paper ideas were perhaps a bit harsh.

The Slytherin team converged into a flying V. They sliced down the center, their moderate sized players dipping beneath the Seeker and two Beaters. The crowd grew rabid as a handsome black Chaser named Zabini made a 360 degree loop on his onyx Nimbus, nodding tribute to his compatriot—a familiar towheaded boy—as another round was announced.

Narcissa, unpainted though her pinky nails remained, shot to her feet and led a passionate cheer of "hsssssssss"ing. She had a slightly unhinged, fanatical look on her face.

Bellatrix was too distracted to laugh at her baby sister at first, because she was showing a wide-eyed, rigid Elizabeth how to cast the Cruciatus on a passing colony of ants. Eventually, when Andromeda, with a tawny-haired boy with a heart-shaped face in tow, told her to stop casting Unforgivables on school grounds where a thousand different chaperones would be obliged to throw her ass in Azkaban, she snickered. "Roddy's so much sexier," she sneered.

"Roddy's a fat gorilla," Narcissa spat back.

Odile blinked and shook her head, attempting to ignore them both.

The Chasers were now circling the stadium. Like a silver sieve through molasses came Lucius, who performed a spectacular barrel roll nosedive, waving wildly to ratty little Severus Snape. The Slytherin Seeker cocked his head and shrugged as though with incomprehension.

The Hufflepuff Seeker took the bait, accelerating in pursuit of the blond Chaser—a clear diversion to his fellow students, who hollered in misery at his poor judgment. The moment the gullible boy was diverted, Snape came to life, careening towards Odile, Victor, and the Blacks.

Odile gasped. A tiny gold ball, chittering like a locust, hovered just above her nose.

"Hold still," Victor laughed, just as Snape seized the Snitch from nearly flying up her nostril.

The bellows of applause were deafening. The match was won.

Zabini did a midair somersault. Lucius pulled out of his hybrid divebomb maneuver, lightly shoved the head of the passing Hufflepuff Seeker towards the dirt, and crowed a "HA, YES!" that was audible across the brown, muddy November field. Then the Chasers landed somewhere in the center of the pitch, beyond view.

Snape gave a sanguine smile and lifted his scrawny arm, clutching his quarry, high. Alastair and Rodolphus, the Beaters, pounced him from behind, lifting him on their shoulders, and his broom hurtled downward into an awed first-year's eagerly outstretched hands. Rodolphus lifted his free arm, flashed a bulldog-like grin, and led the Slytherins in a spirited round of "Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts."

Odile covered her ears, laughed, and screamed and sang jubilantly along with her classmates. Only the lovely and pouting Narcissa was shouting "GO SLYTHERIN!" as loudly as she.

The afternoon sun winked through the clouds, beating hotly down on her scalp, and she had to squint to see across the field.

A tall, slender mass deposited its broom and came dashing straight towards her—people in the bleachers dodged out of the way at the sound of pounding footsteps on the creaking wood. Victor shifted uneasily beneath her.

And then someone's lips exploded against hers in a warm, wet, smooth, clove-cinnamon-flavored kiss. And someone's hands were in her hair gently combing through it, like the radiant sun itself was massaging her. And the smell of earth and chamomile tea and leather was all around her, and it gave her a headache and a fierce desire to burst into joyous laughter all at once. She gasped and gulped and looked down into the brilliant winterstorm slate eyes of Lucius Malfoy. His face was sweaty and bursting red. He licked his lips and grinned. "Did you see it—my bluff?" He leaned up and kissed her, still on Victor's shoulders, again. "Did you like it?" Another kiss. "It was for you." Another. "I saw you in the light, I saw the Snitch right over you—you helped me to win." And another. Then he reached up and tugged on one of her braids, with the lime green ribbon. "It was you. Come have a butterbeer with me, Odile." And now those eyes were very, very hungry.

Odile was still chasing after her breath. Victor shifted under her again, almost so jerkily that she feared toppling off. "Woah!…er…"

"Come with me, please." He, too, was breathless. "Look, you made me blush, after all. Odile, please." At his sides now, his fingers wriggled like those of a child eager to plunge its hand in a candy jar. "Go out with me. Be my girlfriend. We've been at this for months. Go out with ME, NOW….please."

Odile was sinking, because Victor was putting her down. She didn't even turn to see where her friend was going. She was swimming in sparkling gray. She had not realized how tall her blond Chaser was until no longer supported by her old friend's piggybacking.

"Impress me," she breathed.

Lucius smiled. He leaned down and, cavalierly, kissed both her cheeks. "Nice makeup," he said, wiping the green off his lips. His eyes flicked behind her and for a moment acquired a hard, snide light. She turned and saw he was gazing at Victor's back; Victor was walking off quite briskly, shoulders hunched, with Narcissa on his arm.

'Well…" She frowned. "I.."

Lucius tugged on her arm. "C'mon, pretty girl. Follow me."

"Have you ever had fizzing whizbees?" Lucius Malfoy gathered Odile Guerrisseur into his lap. The couple reclined in the Slytherin Commonroom after the victory party, the scent of firework gunpowder and popcorn still thick in the air.

They were the only two teens that had not yet passed out on the confetti-littered floor from the unauthorized firewhiskey that Roddy Lestrange had wheedled out of that pretty Hogsmeade bargirl, Rosmerta.

At the moment, Lucius—who was not drunk, but who was the tiniest bit tipsy—was doing that ridiculous, endearing thing where he licked his lips slowly, from one edge to the other and from top to bottom. His eyes gauged Odile and one eyebrow went cockeyed. "Because if you have NOT had fizzing whizbees…I shall have to seize you and force you to try them." He took a swig of firewhiskey from the silver M-crested chalice that usually rested on the endtable by his four-poster. Then he thrust back his head and poured tiny blue crystals from a cloth Honeydukes sack down his throat. A faint crackling resounded in the cave of his mouth. He leaned back, pulling her with him. He took her hand and guided it along his firm stomach and chest. The right corner of his lip twitched and tugged as she traced her fingers up and down the path he'd indicated.

Comfortable silence.

"Well?" He asked again, in a soft slur. She felt him shifting weight underneath her to have another drink. A wet, sweet-smelling kiss planted itself on her forehead, then came the sound of enthusiastic chugging.

Odile looked up at her boyfriend's jaw, firmly sculpted. The muscles of his throat swelled and retracted as he gulped down the rest of his drink. A few sweat droplets from the exertions of the Quidditch match trickled down that solid jaw and neck, hidden partially by carelessly sleek, graceful platinum hair. All this made her head spin in a giddy way. Suddenly she felt a terrible urge to tease him. How odd. "Lucius."

"Yeeesss?" Higher did that eyebrow climb. He scooted closer, then offered her nose a contemplative glance before lightly kissing its upturned little tip, all the while smugly grinning. "I do love your nose. Have I told you your nose is adorable? At any rate. Go on."

"You know you can't really make me do anything I don't want to do."

Sulkily, as the grin deflated, "Mm hmm."

"You REALLY know that, right?"

With singsongy annoyance, "Yeee-heesss. Annnnd?"

"Annnnd," she lightly mocked his nasal, extremely British intonations, curling some strands of icy blond hair around her fingers, easing herself into his arms, "that means you can't make me eat a fizzing whizbee."

"But they're tasty," he pouted, with an expression of utter incomprehension of her sporting dissent. He sighed in exasperation, gazing at her helplessly. "Why don't you just trust my word and eat some?"

She had, of course, every intention of eating his English candy, but she really had to take a moment to enjoy how his cheeks turned a petulant rose and his lips thinned into an overly patient line at her obstinacy. Lucius needed someone to disobey and gently disagree with him. It was damned good for someone like him, every now and then.

So she said, "Maybe later," and giggled softly.

The right side of his lip quirked oddly, but he glowered above and past her and sat there viciously biting off the head of a chocolate frog. "That's just stupid," he grumbled; the word curled around itself in a wonderfully upper-class, Southwestern English way, such that it sounded more like "styewww-pid." Odile loved it.

She nestled into her boyfriend, arms loosely around his strong, slender shoulders and neck. She felt his Adam's apple bobbing against the skin of her forearm as he swallowed the last of the candy.

"Sorry," he mumbled, still more softly.

She breathed a laugh, inhaling musk cologne, mint tea, sweat, and Hogwarts earth from his neck and mouth. "It's completely alright."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"I should like to kiss you then."

She grinned into his shirt. "Okay."

Something shuffled, a bag being crumpled open. There was a long pause. Then Lucius took Odile's chin in his long pale fingers and tilted it up, smiling somewhat devilishly at her, mouth closed. She blinked at his impish expression but was pulled into a startling kiss before she could make a query. It was the first time she experienced this sort of kiss….the kind of entwining, searching kiss most people liked to colloquially attach to her nationality. As if only the French kissed that way, with their tongues….

A few seconds passed before she tasted something like cotton candy and raspberry ice cream in her mouth. It was delicious. Then she felt something tickling her tongue, bubbling and crackling. It made her chirp in surprise.

Fizzing whizbees.

Odile chirped again, and squealed as a particular little chunk of the candy gave a loud pop against her tongue, blue eyes wide with shock and delight. Her hands flew to her mouth and covered it and something akin to a "tee hee" escaped her.

Lucius pulled back and loudly, happily laughed. He looked triumphant. "You like them, don't you?" he demanded, tugging on her braid, grinning broadly, in a most un-Luciusish manner. "Go on, say it!"

"I love them," she cried, then barked a boisterous laugh of her own, for her mouth was still snapping and popping even as she spoke. "You wicked thing, you put some in your mouth before you kissed me!"

"Yes, yes, I did." His chest inflated like a balloon. "And you are happy. HA."

"Again?" She smiled at him, her cat lips curling up in a tantalizing way fueled by something that was only beginning to awaken inside her.

"Yessss," he grinned, handing her the bag of whizbees. "And tomorrow night, you and I shall go swimming in the lake….the Giant Squid is a jolly friendly old fellow."

She barked again. "I am sure he is positively charming. Why in the evening, cher?"

He shrugged. "Fewer mermaids. Otherwise you'll become quite jealous of their scaly green affections towards me."

"Jealous? No. I should become bored and leave you among the gryndilows, though." The bridge of her nose curled mischievously.

Lucius's face slackened with a haughty eyeroll. "Oh, please. Put the bloody whizbees in your mouth, woman."

Odile obliged, but kept her lips firmly sealed. She watched him as a kitten watches a pale yellow canary flicking towards its claws. She giggled through her nose.

He scowled. "I say, that's irritating."

She shrugged.

He took a blanket draped on the couch behind them, shook it free of confetti, popcorn, and bits of chocolate, and swooped down upon her, swaddling them both. His fingers found her sides and exhibited merciless tickling.

She shrieked, and he nipped at her lips and then pressed his mouth against hers, searching, probing, with a small, content moan. "Tasty….You like stargazing?" he slurred, pulling playfully out of the fizzing and crackling kiss. It was almost perverse how he licked her full bottom lip, before giving her one last peck….but there was a part of her that found it intoxicating too. Her head hummed.

"I have always wanted to be an astronomy connoisseur. I imagine it will look very beautiful seeing the sky reflected on the lake surface," she breathed in response, finding a safe, warm nook under his chin.

"Yes." That chin bobbed as he nodded fervently overhead. "When I was very little, it was how I composed myself at bedtime. A fair distraction. I had a room in the Manor with a very large rose window, you see."

"A distraction from what?" she murmured into his neck.

Another silence, different from the last—stale and taut. She looked up and saw that her boyfriend was frowning at the fireplace. He never answered her. "I'm going to name my firstborn son after the chief star in my favorite constellation," he said instead, brightening, cocking his head so that his chin jutted. "It's called Thuban. Or Draconis. I like Draconis best."

"Draconis?" She wrinkled her nose. "Lucius, can you imagine a child enduring the teasing associated with such a name, no matter how special its meaning? Have a heart!"

He scoffed. "Fine, then, I suppose I could soften it. Draco. The constellation as a whole is Draco. How about that?"

Odile's shoulders shook lightly with her incredulous laughter. It was so strange to discuss children with a boyfriend of 16—when, as her quiet, severe mother often reminded her, she herself was still a child.

Surely he wasn't suggesting...

Or was he so naïve? Did good things, even spouses, even kin and offspring, come so easily to wizard royalty?

Perhaps, she wondered, as he pulled her still closer and the muscles of his arms possessively tightened, it was this pampered assumption that all things came so soon and so easily…that, and a dash of arrogance.

Well, okay. MORE than a dash.

Odile wriggled her toes under the fleece blanket they shared. "I think," she chuckled, burrowing into Lucius, "that it is none of my business, because this is something you will have to discuss, someday, with your wife."

Lucius gave a little jerk. His eyes snapped across her face. His raised eyebrows conveyed confusion, mild insult, and then pain. It startled Odile, whose jaw slackened. But his hurt hid itself beneath a sheet of cold composure before she could elaborate, question, or apologize.

"Why, Lucius," she sputtered, reaching for the arm that had her almost pinned in his grasp,"I just m-meant…"

"Forget it," he murmured. He released her and hogged the blanket to himself. "I know what you meant."

"Oh, stop. Give that here, I'm cold."

He clutched it closer. "So am I."

She sighed. "Oh, Lucius, you know I think you are enough for me. You know I think we are equals in every manner. Don't be upset, it's not like you don't fit my standards. Merlin's sake, you're a nobleman, and in more than mere title. It's just that…babies…I mean, the thought does not even occur to someone our age…"

"It does if that someone hasn't a choice in the matter and might as well get to planning early on," he hissed into the gray fleece, whose wintry, desolate hue brought out the frosty glitter in his eyes. Only those eyes, and his nose, were visible now under the blanket. They narrowed and his nostrils flared. "Father wants me betrothed soon. I'll be damned if I listen to him, and mother is behind me taking my time. But it's only a year or so before he's on my back again anyway, he wants a girl promised to me before I'm 18. Wants her credentials, her dowry, all that rot written down, and a prenuptial agreement to boot."

Odile scooted against Lucius, stroking the soft fleeced shoulder and arm closest to her. She watched her boyfriend's eyes flutter drowsily at the gesture. She proceeded carefully, "Why all the fuss—and the rush, for that matter? You've got to be the most eligible bachelor in you social circle."

The bitter, stony reply, "I _am_. He just wants the line to go on a certain way. Wants my wife compatible with a certain kind of progeny."

"What do you mean, a 'certain kind'?"

"I don't even LIKE kids. Never did. Too silly, too demonstrative, too…sloppy and affectionate…always crying, always wanting something. It'll want me to _feel_ things, a baby….one doesn't feel things in my family. Too…too risky. It isn't done."

"_Lucius_, what do you mean?"

He sucked in his cheeks. "I mean my father wants grey-eyed blonds. Like there have been since our first recorded ancestors in the single digits A.D., you know? He wants my kids to outwardly reflect the demeanor and constitution of a pureblood and a Malfoy. He doesn't trust me to make certain that happens on my _own_, so he wants to _research_ my fiancée, her family, her genes, all that nonsense, before I even get attached to her."

"…Then do you think your father would like me? Could the kids have freckles and red hair? Is it okay that my father's mansion is one wing smaller than yours?" It was meant as gentle jest. She giggled softly, reaching under the blanket for his hand.

But Lucius rounded on her and exploded, "I DON'T KNOW AND I DON'T CARE. I hope it goadssssss him when I'm with you. That'ssss the point, because I already l…" Then he blinked. He bit his lip and closed his eyes, his breathing shallow.

Odile snatched her hand back out. Her heart thundered in her ears. Lucius had never shouted before. Lucius had never shown any emotion besides smugness and calm contentment before. "I…"

"No, please…Odile, I spoke out of turn." In instants she was relegated to the privileged world of the fleece blanket sharer, crushed in an oddly feverish embrace. It was immediately apparent to her that she could not breathe, wrapped up in that fleece cocoon with her boyfriend. She let out a wheezing noise, and he loosed his grip a second time. His earlobes were burning a bright red and he would not look at her.

"It's a-alright," she stammered. "Cher, you have said nothing rude of or….or to _me_! There is no cause for embarrassment!"

"I became emotional," he replied in a monotone. "Speaking of children, it was most childish. Emotions are banal and weak and simple, they are childish. You have my word, it will not happen again. Ugh, foolishness." A forced roll of eyes and toss of silver-blond hair followed this declaration. Still he would not look at her.


	4. Chapter 4

The Freckles on My Face:

Chapter 4

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content. Near the final chapters of this fanfiction, there is an ALLUSION to a past rape. It is not detailed, but it is nevertheless enough that the reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read that passage. Aside that, this fiction is for a PG-suited audience.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy's parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxus Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

This chapter is a brief return to the present, to introduce whispers of the pains of the past. Read and see. This chapter IS NOT APPROPRIATE for CHILDREN. You have been WARNED.

As I have been burned by this before, I want to REITERATE that there is single use of the "G-D" curseword, and those of you who are particularly sensitive to this, please USE YOUR JUDGMENT and DON'T READ it, INSTEAD OF FLAMING ME. I DO NOT condone the use of such curse words, BUT THEY ARE IN-CHARACTER, so I apply them appropriately for realism. THANK you for your politeness.

As always, enjoy!

_The Party, Summer Before Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

Draco Malfoy bit the inside of his lip. He played with his tie. He shifted weight from one lanky leg to the other, in maintenance of the imperious sangfroid of his forefathers. He tossed his silver-blond hair—over and over—until Haylin Daire gave a snort behind the hors d'oeuvres and Alexis Renard, glancing over from his vigil by the clock on the mantle, teased, "Malfoy, you'll get a crick in your neck!"

Jewlie tsked at her boyfriend. Haylin laughed and threw a cheese cube at Draco's head. It plunked unceremoniously against the kid's impeccably sleek locks.

Draco's pale earlobes and cheeks warmed a darker shade of peach, but he otherwise disregarded the joke and the cheese arsenal. He was staring at his father and Renard's mother, who were holding hands but not looking at each other. There was nothing….sensual, or…romantic about it, really, that much the fifteen-year-old could discern. It was more the way two elderly friends sat on a bench in a park feeding pigeons bread crumbs and chatting about better, older times.

Not that Draco's father would ever feed pigeons in a park.

But oh, hell, it was an idyllic analogy, really, so sod off.

Then mother, with all her gliding, lemon-colored swan gestures, flowed away from Susan's parents and joined them. She took father's other hand, and Alexis Renard's mum, Odile, tactfully slid away from them to find some hummus and pita chips next to Draco.

She smiled at him. He had never noticed before she had freckles, and they sort of crinkled and danced when her lips spread.

Draco found himself smiling back. "Hullo," he greeted her, handing her a plate. He smirked lopsidedly.

"You are a good boy, Draco," Odile replied inexplicably.

"I..well…er thank you."

"A really good boy. Alright?"

His cheeks scorched. "Um, sure. Course I am." He managed a more flippant grin.

Her smile became absent as she filled her plate. "Just so you know. He thinks so too." She nodded at his father. Lucius was tugging coyly on Narcissa's skirts and mumbling something in her ear that was making her vigorously fan herself. "He…always wanted a son."

Draco could tell she was lying at once. The way her face twinged at "always," the way she would not look directly at him—Odile was not the kind of woman to avoid your eyes.

"I appreciate the kind gesture, Dr. Renard," he mumbled, and the buoyancy in his grin deflated, plastered though that grin remained. "But we both know mother nearly died giving birth to me, and nearly killed herself a couple years later of postpartum depression, and that father has never forgiven me for one shortcoming after another after that." He bit his lip again.

"Fine, he did not say he always wanted a son. But he _did _tell me that the day you were born, and the mediwitch handed you to him, and you reached out and grabbed at his hair and yanked it, for just a second, his heart stopped. And he smiled when he said it. So you tell me what he meant by that, Draco." Odile shook her head softly but fervently. "You are a very good boy," she added, insistently. She smoothed his hair and turned, bustling back to Lucius and Narcissa, whom her Chardonnay-satiated husband Victor had joined.

Draco shoved his hands in his pants pockets and offered the cream wall nearest him the most mutinous look he could conjure. His eyes stung fiercely. He felt a light punch on his right shoulder, and a gentle pat on his left. He turned to his right, where Haylin stood, and to his left, where Alexis stood. "What's this," he jested—quietly, to keep his drawling voice from shaking, "the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other?"

His friends chuckled; Alexis even gave him a one-armed squeeze. From the fireplace, girlfriends Susan and Jewlie cooed and glowed in approval.

Narcissa was discussing something with increased animation, her diamond earrings burning little rainbow lights into her skin. Lucius, who had been all but fondling her in public, now withdrew from her more and more; sounds of "shhhh" and "not now" hissing from his scrunched-up lips. He darted desperate looks at none other than Odile, who seemed to understand, and who continued to try and change the subject. It seemed Narcissa, like Victor, had become more than a little tipsy.

Draco stared over at his parents now with renewed anxiety.

"But it's true your father gave you that cane!" Narcissa burst out, loud enough for the entire room to hear, pointing at Lucius's long, thin black companion as though it were the culprit of a murder. She burst into a silly giggle. A handful of heads turned.

Victor tossed his head back and rumbled a laugh—it was a most good-natured laugh, but Lucius recoiled. He growled something in Narcissa's ear. She froze, her face at once unnaturally calm and complacent, her eyes downcast. Her husband turned and strode stiffly onto the balcony. There was a nervous tic in his right cheek which appeared something between a grimace and a half-smile.

Haylin gave a low whistle.

Alexis elbowed him.

Draco felt sick. "He's gonna come back in and hex everyone," he moaned.

Victor, who heard this, gave a chortle. "It will be amusing to see him try!"

Odile elbowed him.

He bit his lip. "Sorry, I'm a little drunk."

Draco shrugged at him and turned around.

Silence in the corner where the parents stood. The two wives regarded each other. Odile, as ever, warmly smiled. "What is the matter, Narcissa?"

"Why don't you go comfort him?" Draco's mother icily queried. Her nose wrinkled as if a stench had entered the room. "Since you understand him so well."

"She does NOT," Victor snapped, drawing himself upright.

Odile elbowed him again. Then she looked up at Narcissa, who was an inch or two taller than she. "No. There are things that you alone can do for Lucius, ma chere. Believe me. You should go." She nodded at the still-open door to the balcony.

Narcissa swallowed several times, as if a whole melon were caught in her long, delicate throat. She then sharply nodded and dashed outside after her husband.

Odile's eyes followed her with understated sorrow. "Those poor people," she muttered, in reference to the wealthiest and most prestigious English wizards in contemporary society.

But she was right.

Draco trailed after his parents. He watched them on the balcony, his mother gracefully but rigidly poised behind behind his father, an ice skater preparing to pirouette around a thorny subject, trying to muster the nerve to touch him or speak to him.

Sometimes he thought he understood his mother better than he understood his father.

Lucius continued to inch away from Narcissa, looking up at the stars, at Draco's namesake constellation, most likely. His back was to Draco.

His back was always to Draco.

Always.

It was so God-damned ironic that Draco wanted to cry. Looking at the star, ignoring the son, the "almost," the insufficient. Wanting to pretend he was still wishing for the son, most likely, rather than knowing Draco was such a disappointment. It was probably less painful that way, to forfeit all sixteen years of memories with his son.

Draco bloody hated himself. Lucius bloody "held his breath" when his infant son yanked on a lock of hair, did he? Bullshit. Just bloody bullshit, that was.

Just.

Bull.

SHIT.

And what was sad was it was true, that Lucius had gotten a hot lump in his throat when his baby son had been placed in his arms at four am, June 5, sixteen years past, and had looked at him, and somehow recognized him, and gurgled adoringly at him, like he was God and sufficient unto himself—everything. What was sad was Lucius had chuckled when his son had yanked on his hair, and had given him a gauging, puzzled look, and had laughed even more when the baby happily screamed and wriggled towards him in his St. Mungo's swaddling cloths. Actually, what Lucius had first said to Draco, the first thing he'd ever said to his boy, in his mildly amused, drawling voice, was, "You smell rather odd." And then the baby had squealed again, reaching covetously for the imminently intriguing silky pale stuff sprouting from Daddy's head….

But Draco did not realize, standing there at the balcony door of his friend's house, that so much could change in sixteen years. Not yet, at least. Draco was still far too young to understand the stranger things of humanity quite that well.

Lucius held the cane in his right hand, so that Narcissa could not embrace him, not just yet.

Draco sighed. That damn thing. It was from his grandfather, all right.

Another man he never understood.

He had few and sketchy memories of Abraxas Malfoy, who had died of dragonpox when Draco was seven, eight, somewhere around that age. The most vivid ones were from years before he had even attended Hogwarts.

_Grandfather was a big man, the kind of big that doesn't need to crush a soda can in his fist for you to know he could crush a whole person._

_He was thick and iron, and very tall, even though he had a hunch in his back from the stoop of old age. He used to carry an obsidian cane—yes, THAT cane—but he gave it to father when father was only sixteen._

_Father's wand was a green-eyed silver snake with a sleek ebony wood body housing scale of dragon. He had it inserted into the beveled edge of the cane, so that his wand went with him everywhere. He used his wand to punish Draco. So with that cane, he could punish Draco anywhere. He used the cane too, when he was REALLY mad._

_But that was still Grandfather's cane. It made four and five-year-old Draco feel funny—in a way that tickled his stomach and made him queasy, like he'd drunk sour milk—to look at that cane._

_Grandfather had an unnerving voice. It started a hiss, and suddenly exploded into a loud bark, for no reason at all, then it died mid-flight and became a whisper again. His left eye twitched whenever his voice changed, and his right eye bulged. He didn't have any laugh wrinkles by his eyes, and those eyes were the gray glaciers from which came father's gaze. His face didn't look old at all, even though his hair and handlebar moustache were silver-gray—it was a very smooth, square, pointy face. There were no soft places on it, and it was pale, except for his ruddy cheeks, which made him look the way father's dinner party guests looked when they drank too much of the sweet-smelling purply-red stuff in the wine decanter. _

_But whenever Grandfather Abraxas called Draco to come sit in his lap, he was very nice. They would sit and talk about marbles and adders and building forts out of couch pillows, and ice cream. _

_Draco never knew why, but Father refused to leave him alone with Grandfather for more than a few minutes. _

_Grandfather always gave Father funny looks—he would smile at Father, and his lips turned into a sort of pale pencil mark on a white wall, and they'd twist the way a mouth twists when someone is angry or in pain. Draco had looked in the mirror one day when his knee had been scabbed and he was crying and Mum was applying ointment, and his mouth had gotten that way—so Draco, even at five, knew what that kind of face looked like._

_And then Father would stand really straight and stiff in the doorway and just watch them, and refuse to leave. And Grandfather would say, "Is he so much safer with you, Lucius? Look at this bruise—" and point to a place on Draco's back or bottom where Father had lost his temper._

_And Father would start breathing funny—in short, shallow gasps, and just stand there staring. Draco hated that look on Father's face. Father was not supposed to look scared._

_And that would be the end of it—and Grandfather would pet Draco's hair and back slowly, and josh with him some more, and play wizard's chess with him. Draco didn't like how Grandfather yanked down his pants to show Father the bruise on his bare bottom, but when he tried to do it again, Father stepped closer and made a noise in his throat, and so Grandfather would stop straight away._

_One time Mum was in the room too, at the piano, and she stopped playing when Grandfather did this again—when Draco was running by to catch one of the pet dragons, a Pygmy Chinese Fireball. He snagged Draco mid-run and laughed like a bear roaring and said, "Got him again, did you, son? Do you think you're getting at me when you get at him?"_

_And Mum let out a gasp and turned very white. And Father got that horrible look Draco hated so much and told Grandfather to stop._

_And Grandfather tried to pick Draco up with his bare bottom showing—and Draco squirmed and started crying because this all felt so ugly and weird. _

_And Grandfather roared again, and Father said, "I always hated that, don't you do it to my…to Draco, too!" and Grandfather roared louder and said, "You're a coward, Lucius, because you can't even say the word 'son.'" And Draco felt like crying harder, though he didn't know why._

_And they had another guest that day, Grandfather's close friend, a stinky, shabby man named Fenrir, who thought this was all very, very amusing, and who was laughing behind the piano and slapping his thighs, and telling Grandfather to "do it," whatever "it" was. _

_And Mum got up and walked over to Grandfather and scooped Draco away from him, and crooned in his ear and told him she would give him a chocolate frog—and she smelled like soap and lemonade and rosewater, and he felt safe again. And she walked past Father and didn't look at him, and Father still had that horrible, angry and scared look on his face, and his ears were red._

_Father's ears were never red, except when Grandfather visited._

"Draco?"

Someone was tugging at his tie. He looked down at Alexis's little sister Margaret, whose enormous brown eyes scrutinized him. She took his hand again and cocked her head, her auburn curls tumbling over her shoulder. She scratched at her cheek, where her freckles were.

"Hail, Maggie, well met," Draco murmured, tugging on a curl.

"Are you alright? You look like…how the English say…you are seeing a ghost?"

"…Guess you could say that." Draco traced the images of his parents on the glass of the sliding balcony door. He ran over his father's back over and over again, his mother's pleading profile. Then he spread his palm over the snake cane, and smiled ever so slightly, because it was hidden, gone, just like magic.

R&R please. This is the last "flash-forward" as it were until the end .


	5. Chapter 5

The Freckles on My Face:

Chapter 5

A Harry Potter Fanfiction by Amberpalette (Amber Carroll Stitt)

Rated PG-13 for discussion of mature and violent content, and for one or two cases of HEAVY SWEARING (G-D and F words). There are also allusions to the possible sexual abuse of a character in this chapter, and to hazing of peers due to racial and cultural bigotry. The reader should PLEASE EXERCISE DISCRETION and NOT allow children under 14 to read this chapter. I do not condone the use of the curses featured, but they are appropriate to the nature of the characters using them. Nor do I condone bigotry, incest, or rape—rather, by exploring these issues, I am raising awareness of their cruel and horrendous effects on human beings. Therefore, IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THESE ISSUES AND USES OF LANGUAGE, PLEASE DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME FLAMING ME, SIMPLY DO ME THE COURTESY OF NOT READING THIS CHAPTER—I REFUSE TO EDIT OUT THESE PORTIONS. THANK YOU.

This fanfiction is primarily an exploration of the adolescence of Draco Malfoy's parents (particularly his father Lucius) through their interaction with a fancreated family, the Renard family of France/Beauxbatons. The Renards are © to ME and may NOT be used without permission. There are brief appearances by fancreated characters the Daire family, the Collins family, Jewlie Wells, and Michael Flanagan, all of whom are © to Lindsay Fisk and are used with permission. Abraxas Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy, Narcissa Black-Malfoy, Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Black-Lestrange, Rodolphus Lestrange, and Andromeda Black-Tonks are all © the blessed and talented J.K. Rowling.

This fanfiction is a hypothetical slice of the adolescence of certain Harry Potter characters that we only know and hate as full-fledged adults. I simply contend that even the most hardened and cruel Death Eater, Nazi or Klansman may have once been a relatively normal, awkward teenager—a human being, that is—and that this fact may be what is saddest about his/her turn towards darkness. To overcome and defeat the monsters of a given society, one must be able to empathize with who those same monsters once were.

Enjoy your reading.

_I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…I shook hands with him; it seemed silly not to, for I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child. Then he went to the jewelry store to buy a necklace—or perhaps only a pair of cuff buttons—rid of my provincial squeamishness forever. –_F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"That little Black boy is beginning to irritate me." The towheaded Slytherin Prince's voice, however quiet, carried theatrically from the aged oak table throughout the Great Hall.

Several heads turned; even more eyes rolled, but no one, at least within hearing distance, had the balls to contradict a Malfoy.

"Lucius, really! I did not peg you as a bigot." Though Odile, the only Ravenclaw in the Slytherin corner, felt the tingling of self-deception in her chest even as she said it…and it was an alien sensation. She was not sure she was comfortable with that.

Nearby, Victor Renard sad up a bit straighter with a righteously indignant "I TOLD you so" look on his tanned features, shot directly at Odile. She tried to ignore her childhood friend, who often functioned as her conscience—an irony as she was the sterling student and Victor the troublemaker.

Lucius gave a tiny scolding hoot and a _tut-tut_. "Not as in RACE black. I'm not a bigot, darling, Antony Zabini's my mate after all…have a gander at his little sister sometime, she's utterly gorgeous…not so gorgeous as you, of course, and they say that when she's bored with her boyfriends, they tend to get ill or disappear…how many has it been, now, Miss Zabini, seven? That's a lucky number, will the next beau be allowed to live—or even stick?" All in an oily soft croon, as Lucius grinned unapologetically over at the mocha-skinned young lady in question.

Miss Zabini was two seats down from Odile in the company of voluntary ditz Narcissa and her younger friend Elizabeth. The, yes, inconceivably beautiful, black girl tossed her ornately beaded cornrows and flashed a painfully haughty glare back followed by a graceful execution of her middle finger, puckered her lips, and returned to her parchment.

Odile observed the girl's fingernails upon the rude gesture. My, were they long and red…a lot like those of the voluntary ditz's voluntary harpy of an older sister, Bella—who was, far from regrettably, cutting study hall out in some dungeon corridor making out with Roddy Lestrange. May their necking never cease, Odile silently prayed.

"Er…." was all she mustered.

"Ignore her," Lucius purred. "She's jealous of you sitting next to me is all."

"Of course." Now Odile smirked. "There can be no other explanation, like, oh, say, impudence on your part."

"Of course not. Anyway, by Black I meant a surname—I meant Bella and Cissa's cousin, that boy Sirius. Only member of the Black family for generations who didn't go Slytherin when he was sorted. Some sort of freak. They say even his brother Regulus will be a Slytherin when the time comes." Lucius inclined his glossy white-blond head regally at a coal-haired second-year, a defiantly slouched, small boy who was holding court at Gryffindor with almost the same frequent, disruptive egocentrism of her boyfriend. The feisty little boy's companions were three other boys: a messy-haired brunette with circular glasses, his same size and age, relishing and playfully rebutting the obnoxious darkhead's words; an even smaller, mousy child with peering, blinking little beady eyes and protruding teeth, who seemed to be more an eavesdropper or groupie; and a slightly taller, thinner, sandy-haired boy with a gentleness in his pale, tired features that bordered on excessive complacency to his more loquacious friend's obvious rudeness.

There was a conspicuous emptiness at the table next to this last boy, whom, to Odile, seemed the most likeable of all four, despite a number of scars on his face and neck. There was such sweetness to his unassuming little smile.

"I don't know about Monsieur Black," she breathed, "but what is causing the ostracizing of his quiet friend?"

"Ugh, Odile, don't you know?" Lucius's ridiculously perfect, pointy little nose wrinkled and became ugly.

Odile's featured acquired the slightest of storminess. "No," she retorted evenly. "Enlighten me."

"_Shhh_," someone hissed down the table. The sallow, crowlike Seeker, Severus Snape.

"Oh, Severus, old boy, _do_ sod off," Lucius drawled. "There's a good pup, have a biscuit." He tossed an earwax Every Flavor Bean at Severus. It plinked off the boy's gray-tinged forehead. Nearby, Crabbe, a boy of considerable girth, jiggled with laughter.

And Snape, oh my. If looks could kill. That was an impressively murderous glare between that greasy black curtain of hair, especially for a tiny, scrawny second year.

But Lucius just chuckled airily and tugged on Odile's braid to regain her attention.

She frowned at him. "That wasn't nice. We should be quiet in study hall."

"Oh shoosh, you asked me a question, dearest. And the simplest answer is, that boy, something or another Lupin I think, is a weahwolf."

"A what?" OH. She hadn't heard through his thick, posh Wiltshire lilt at first. "A werewolf."

"Precisely."

"I feel horrible for him."

Lucius's eyebrows quirked. "Pardon?"

"Would you like to have a chronic illness, Lucius?"

"What are you all cross about?"

"Don't you….? All you really feel is disgust?"

"And a touch of fear, I'll readily admit."

"But Lucius, he's a human being…!"

"Look, darling. You're an idealist, and a touch naïve. (Odile bristled) Well you are, dearest, and I mean it as a compliment, but….My father knows one of those creatures. (Odile gave a disbelieving snort) No, really. I wasn't even allowed to speak to the man when I was younger. (Odile's eyes flashed in a "prove it" sort of way) I can't remember seeing old Fenrir in clean clothes. Not even once. And he had fangs. In fact, I forbid you to go around that second year. I bet he'd try to bite you if you were alone and that would just kill me if you were turned into one of them. They like to increase their numbers. It makes them feel more normal, and all."

Odile's peach skin had gone a slightly warmer hue, and her lapis eyes burned like the blue in the heat of a flame. "You FORBID me…?"

Lucius eyed his girlfriend sidelong and shifted in his seat. He modified his speech fluidly, his expression never changing. "I would PREFER you didn't associate with him."

Still Odile scowled. Her breaths were audible. She clenched and unclenched her fists, attempting to calm down.

Victor watched the couple in his corner to the right of Narcissa, Elizabeth and Miss Something Zabini, looking pleased as punch at his friend's capacity to stand up against her significant other. And, perhaps, the tiniest bit covetous that she was looking at Lucius instead of him. Narcissa smoothed her lemon sherbet cascades of hair and stood regally, flouncing over to Gryffindor to speak to its only constituent worth licking her toes—a roundfaced younger boy named Merlin who often served as her Transfiguration tutor. She had the same look on her face towards Lucius as Victor had towards Odile—the look of the absolutely determined and adoring child gazing in the store front window at the most desirable and expensive toy, counting his or her spare change and vowing to make a savings from weekly allowance to purchase it….

Lucius, still using his peripheral vision to scrutinize Odile, paused. Then he cleared his throat. "But it's your decision to make, of course," he forced in a voice that was strained with the effort of relinquishing control to someone. Poor little rich boy. At least there was a mild note of apology in the tone. "I er. Could be wrong. Somehow."

Odile relaxed infinitesimally. "Better," she murmured, suddenly preferring her homework to her present company. He shifted weight again as she scrawled the beginning of a Potions essay. She was elaborating upon the inflammatory effects of dragon manure and stinkscap on boiled Finnish cabbage when she felt that damned tug on her braid again. She looked up and sighed at her boyfriend, who at times like this was entirely too good-smelling and handsome.

"What?" she half-snapped.

He used those luminous gray eyes to his advantage. "Don't be vexed. I'm having a bad day." He scooted closer, until he wrapped an arm around her waist, in a sort of public half-snuggle. Damn but he was a persuader. He ought to be a Muggle lawyer. Or a salesman of some sort. That boy could sell rotting eggs and have customers begging for more. It really REALLY annoyed her sometimes.

"YOU'RE having a bad day?" She scoffed. "I just found out that my boyfriend's perfectly progressive about race relations but all for the genocide of the chronically ill."

"I thought we dropped this." He actually looked hurt. Oh, yeah right. He was a good actor. "Okay fine, so if they take some Wolfesbane they're jolly wonderful normal blokes." He rolled his eyes; all she saw were eyewhites for a long five seconds, and she could not help a giggle. Instantly his gaze snapped back over her. He flashed his contented smirk, knowing he'd finally broken the ice that had recently materialized between them.

"Do you mean that?"

"….If you want me to. If it means that much. I guess. For now. But I won't swear to it if anyone else asks."

She smiled, and it was radiant. She lowered her eyes to her work. "Good. Why are you having a bad day, cher?"

His smile became more absent, though it lingered, as she took his hand and stroked the top of it with a free finger. "Well. Speaking of my father. He's coming to visit this afternoon. In about….forty-five minutes."

"HA!" Rodolphus, with Bellatrix slinking in sneering tow, made no effort to diminish his deafening peal of laughter. Several professors ambled in his direction with hisses of "Soften your voice!" and "_Quiet_, Lestrange!" as he continued with wicked glee, "Your jumped-up ole dad's coming up from the Manor, eh, old bean? Oughtta hide under your bed, wot!" He elbowed Lucius, whose ears were on fire, in the ribs.

Odile ignored her boyfriend's Beater teammate. She brightened. "How wonderful! I can't wait to meet him!"

Rodolphus was once more seized with helpless, ape-like chortles. Bellatrix, who was practically straddling his lap in public, scoffed and tossed Odile the kind of expression that a patronizingly sweet nurse gives her most addled of patients. Lucius's eyes continued to rove some distance through the cobblestone walls of the Great Hall. "That proves you've never met him," he breathed. "Roddy, shut up."

Odile frowned. "…Sorry?"  
"Nothing. I can't sit still anymore. Come walk with me, would you?" There was no difference to Lucius's icily smug demeanor of custom aside a tight, elevating shrillness in his whisper. He eyed the silver pocketwatch dangling from a chain that protruded from under his jumper. "I think I should like to take some laps around the Quidditch pitch to spend a bit of …energy."

Odile watched her boyfriend out of the corner of her eye. She bent forward and blew the last few words of her parchment dry, her burnt sienna braid threatening to dip in the ink vial. Then she rolled up her homework, and stood. "Let's go."

"Thumbing through the pages of my fantasies  
Pushing all the mercy down, down, down  
I wanna see you try to take a swing at me  
Come on, gonna put you on the ground, ground, ground

Thumbing through the pages of my fantasies  
I'm above you, smiling at you, drown, drown, drown  
I wanna kill and rape you the way you raped me  
And I'll pull the trigger

And you're down, down, down

Why are you trying to make fun of me?  
You think it's funny? What the f you think it's doing to me?  
You take your turn lashing out at me  
I want you crying while your dirty ass's in front of me

All of my hate cannot be found  
I will not be drowned by your thoughtless scheming  
So you can try to tear me down  
Beat me to the ground I will see you screaming"  
--Korn/Evanescence Odile wasn't really focusing on Lucius's arrow-piercing form above the pitch. She had felt her stomach tying in knots over the presence of this legendary Sire Malfoy, she was loathe to admit, after that look that Bellatrix Black had given her.

Had she been paying attention, she would have noticed the marked ferocity with which Lucius's palm smacked the red leather Quaffle into the center hoop…over and over and over, obsessively. His teeth, she could have heard them grinding on the ground …but she was staring at the lake where they had been taking evening swims with a group of Slytherins, breaking curfew, at least once a week.

She longed for one of those sessions right now. She loved how she always tickled Lucius underwater and made him laugh helplessly. He was ticklish in weird places, like above his bellybutton, instead of the conventional places, like under the arms. She was proud that she had found this out, because Lucius rarely ever laughed out loud.

God. She was so nervous right now.

She looked up at the pitch again and her stomach dropped, because now Lucius was nowhere to be found, and she had promised him she would watch him, to help lessen his nerves. All this had done was augment her own nerves, for she had never known a person or concept that unnerved her boyfriend.

"I saw him go inside the changing room tower," a voice, familiar aside a foreign harsh, high pitch, all but barked in her ear. He had landed beside her and she hadn't noticed.

Odile jumped and gasped. Her hand flung to her neck, where her palm felt her pulse thundering, but she recovered swiftly. "Him?"

"My father." Lucius flung the curt explanation over his shoulder as he marched into the changing rooms. The emerald Slytherin team heraldry banners swayed with maddening calm in the breeze. Odile swallowed, grounded her feet in the rich dark soil of the pitch, and followed him—about two minutes later.

She heard voices already immersed in soft conversation as she dashed round the corner of charm-sealed lockers.

"I am early, Lucius, because the Aethonon show in Devonshire ended early. I decided not to invest in those chestnut mares anyhow—my Abraxan palominos are unmatched, especially on the French scene, and our stables are already so full. This way, I can drive down the price till those bastards are bankrupt and corner that damned market for good. I'll bet Olympe Maxime's family will still invest in some fine stallions…."

A silence as Odile paused behind the last locker—almost as if the other speaker expected an apology or further explanation, and gave less than the most miniscule of damns about winged draft horses.

(Years later Odile would come to discover that Lucius's father was a world-renowned wizarding horse breeder—for a hobby as much as for financial gain, since the Malfoys were the oldest of old rich families in England—that he had invented a new breed, the Abraxan, a palomino draft horse that could be ridden individually or carry extremely heavy loads like flying carriages. Odile's future son's Headmistress Madame Olympe Maxime would be the highest buyer of these horses in France, and would come to prescribe single malt whiskey for their drinks. After Abraxas would die of dragon-pox, about six or seven years after Lucius's only son was born, Lucius would have all the horses sold except one—the very old stallion that his father had ridden. He would take that horse out, ride it till it dropped of exhaustion, and then he would sort of lose his wits, take it into the stables and privately beat it with a whip until a house elf would be sent out to stop him from killing it. The same horse had thrown Lucius once, leaving him with a broken leg in the hospital. Abraxas had berated his son for upsetting the horse. He had not visited his son in the hospital—even joked about how he had wished his "graceless son" had not survived the fall. But, reader, this would all happen years later. So never mind, back on the subject.)

"….Well, father?" finally Lucius's voice, tighter and thinner and higher than ever, could be heard. Odile could not see either of them yet, unable to turn that final corner and face her fear. "Where is she THIS time?"

"….Oh yes. Your mother could not come. She was indisposed." Oh God. It sounded so mechanical.

"Since when has mother NOT been indisposed…. sir?"

A tense silence followed, and Odile managed to slip in behind the two Malfoy men in the duration.

She was jolted by the pungency of musk cologne and….leather? Fresh hay? Some earthy smell, like a clean horse stable. She nearly ran into a broad-shouldered man's back, encased in black fur robes with no other ornamentation—both ostentatious and severely puritanical at once. She could see Lucius's head and wide, vigilant, nervously alert face around one furry black shoulder. Lucius cleared his throat and looked at her almost apologetically. Then the man turned. The very moment their eyes met, Odile felt a primal urge, a need, to put distance between herself and the terrifying individual.

Abraxas Malfoy was stooped but firm, crouched but large-boned, like the offspring of a snake and a badger. He cocked his head, with steel-gray, sleek short receding hair, at Odile, and bestially frowned. Under a long aquiline nose, his enormous silver-and-blond handlebar moustache quaked as though he were prepared to weep and laugh in the same instant—but it did not reach the rest of his taut, too-smooth, too-sharp face. It was an unnerving gesture, for he had a long, vulture-like neck, hunched forward, as he scrutinized them both.

What was worse, his eyes blazed like molten pewter, like crackled gray glass, as though he had long ago shed sanity, as though he were the most zealous griever at a funeral, in a fit of endless pain and mourning.

One of these shattered eyes perpetually twitched and squinted as though he were having a stroke. All of this destroyed the potential handsomeness of his fine, symmetrical features: There was no doubt from whom Lucius got his stunning good looks, though on this man, they seemed somehow poisoned.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Malfoy," she heard herself wheeze.

Mr. Malfoy reached up and stroked his Victorian-era Squire's white-blond sideburns, glazed in silver, with such a sporadic gesture that Lucius shielded Odile with an arm—as if he expected his father to strike a total stranger. She heard her boyfriend sucking air into his cheeks as he stared his father down. She immediately grasped Roddy Lestrange's comment about a "jumped-up ole dad," but not his mirth. Nothing about this volcanic creature was remotely amusing.

"Father, don't," was all Lucius said. He was staring at the man's left eye, as though the squirming of that eyeball meant something ominous.

"Look over there," the man whispered in awe, pointing to their right.

Lucius sighed and, very tiredly, turned his head in the direction of his father's tremulous, large, black-gloved finger.

It happened very quickly. Abraxas Malfoy exploded with a noise like a grizzly bear's roar. He dropped both hands to his side and seized his cane like a cricket bat, pivoted, and smacked it against Lucius's tense arm and shoulder. The boy grunted but did not cry out or double over. Odile screamed without thinking.

Abraxas was still making that awful roar, and when Odile could think through her rushing heartbeat, she realized he was laughing.

"Stupid boy," he bellowed, and then, as though something constricted his windpipe, the laughter became a soundless wheeze of amusement. He doubled over, leaning on the cane, apparently unable to bear his own wit. "You fall for it every time!" he managed between gasps.

Odile did not like the ugly magenta color his skin turned when he was laughing.

In fact, Odile did not like HIM. And Odile was not a swift judge.

"I pretend to fall for it to satisfy you," Lucius angrily purred at his father, through his perfectly straight white teeth. He rubbed his shoulder, and Odile saw pain-tears prickling in the corners of his eyes, but as ever, they remained unshed, and were soon gone. He tossed his hair. She knew what that meant. He was both insecure and furious. And he was showing off.

Abraxus straightened as far as he could with his oddly hunched back, grinning quietly but maliciously at his son. He must have been enormously tall at a younger age, for even now he was eye-to-eye with Lucius, who was a good six foot one.

"Cheeky brat, isn't he?" he rumbled at Odile, whose legs pricked with little knives of anxiety. "Doesn't even remember to introduce you to his dear father—the son of Purebloods since the time of the Pendragons, but does he remember common etiquette? HA. And you'll be the latest girl, then? Smashing." He glanced down at her legs, whetting his lips. She suddenly felt as though they were pale, hairy, and chafed, just under the force of his gaze. "Lovely," he added. "But Lucius, a French girl? You know what venereal disorders they carry. Oh begging your pardon, my dear. JOSHING, luv, ha-HA!" He mocked a prim bow on her behalf. "What was your name, again?"

Oh yes. She truly disliked this man. "Odile Guerrisseur, monsieur," she supplied frostily.

Lucius shifted beside her. She made out a vague strangled noise emanating from his sealed lips. She took his hand and squeezed it, and the sound stopped.

"Guerrisseur?" The man guffawed loudly again, making them both jump, which made him laugh all the harder. "As in the AUROR, Seneca Guerriseur? LUC-ius, you FOOL, ha HAA. You scheming LIT-tle CAD." He overpronounced his consonants and seemed to have difficulty modulating his volume. And his insults didn't even make sense.

Lucius's face became deader and deader, and more placid. His eyes were distant and withdrawn. Odile tried to squeeze his hand again. No response whatsoever. It was like he was sleepwalking. "I'm sorry, father, sir, what do you mean?"

"You know PER-fectly well what I mean, my conniving young devil," the man crooned in return, in mocking sweetness to match his son's painfully uncharacteristic, groveling piety. His furiously anguished eyes absorbed Odile again, head to toe, in a fashion bordering on paranoid. "Perfectly. But we've discussed this. Perhaps this is another of your phases."

THIS? Was that man talking about HER? She didn't realize she was crushing her boyfriend's hand now, in her enraged grasp.

"I should like to show you my newest broomflying maneuvers, father," Lucius winced, extracting himself from her. Then he gave a numb sort of nod.

Abraxas had wandered to the edge of the pitch, and was now digging the heel of his black riding boots cruelly into the white practice line that had been charmed over the dirt. He turned and sneered at his son over his shoulder. "My dear boy, you MUST cut your hair. It is entirely too long for a boy of seventeen. It makes you appear saucy and imperious towards your elders."

"Yes, sir." The right corner of Lucius's mouth ticked. It was a gesture that he had only begun to develop when miles past the point of blind rage, a gesture that Odile was to see from him in the years to come. But for now, she found it both unsettling and fascinating to watch his jaw work this way.

Somehow she knew he had no intention of taking a blade to his hair anytime soon.

Abraxas was still talking, pacing to and fro on the white line. "Surely you know we do not allow our hair to grow past our ears till we are past the age of twenty—not in OUR inner circles, my boy, for long hair signifies accomplishment and seniority. Lucius, you KNOW how I cherish having a son, do try harder to make me proud in return. You must EARN the right to grow out your hair—you must do something worthwhile, something enviable. Get your girl here to help you understand THAT. She's a Ravenclaw, must have a grain of sense." He offered Odile a simpering little smile, one that made her skin not just crawl, but ripple.

YOUR GIRL. Ah, mon Dieu…

Lucius's voice quivered the tiniest bit. "YES….sir." Still his eyes were dead. Mechanically, he leapt astride his broom. For the first time in Odile's recollection, he wobbled. Father's hollow and bright eyes were upon him now.

Abraxas hunched towards them, placing a hand on the back of his son's neck. He began to do something that, to Odile, seemed somehow revolting, though she could not pinpoint why: He was merely stroking Lucius's hair. But the way he did it….obsessively, slowly, and a bit too harshly…."Yes, too long," he mumbled, over and over again. "Too long, too long. Yes, yes, your broomflying, my dear boy, who cares? Silly boy, isn't he, Miss Guerrisseur? My dear silly boy. Too long, too long, we must cut your hair soon. Too long."

Lucius arched his back increasingly until his chest and stomach pressed against his broom. His jaw ticked again. His cheeks grew a nauseous gray. His lips moved. Odile could not hear him, but she read between them the movements of "get off me" as many times as Abraxas was saying "too long, we must cut it."

Lucius's ears were turning magenta, though his face remained gray-white. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. He jerked his broom higher, away from his father, looking oddly sickened and ashamed.

His father growled in disapproval at this, seeming to come out of a self-indulgent trance. But Lucius stayed where he was.

Odile had to do something. "Monsieur Malfoy, perhaps it would be more amusing if we all went to Hogsmeade."

Abraxas Malfoy turned a painfully slow stare on her, as if she had just cheerfully suggested that he eat dog feces. His son, who took this chance to hover even higher out of reach, looked a mixture of horrified and grateful.

"Yes, father," he nevertheless rejoined, nodding with that returning freakish calm, "it's a most amusing and quaint location." His earlobes became ivory-colored again.

"I attended Hogwarts, stupid boy, I well recall Hogsmeade," Abraxas snapped in the general direction of the sky, blinking and cringing at the bright sun, directly over which, Odile realized, Lucius was purposefully hovering. There was a snide look on her boyfriend's face, one that his father could of course not make out through the glare. He looked so happy, now, at Abraxas's discomfort that it startled her.

"Very well," the man relented, "since everyone thought it so damned necessary that I come visit you, let us get this over with in Hogsmeade." He laughed almost good-naturedly but the words were so cruel.

Lucius nimbly landed, face tic working worse than ever. His father saw neither his miniature facial convulsions nor his excellent Quidditch move: Abraxas was already hobbling towards the path down to the village.

Odile took Lucius's hand firmly. He did not respond, except to say, "I practiced those moves every evening since August—because HE told me to. 'Who cares,' he says." Tic, tic went the jaw.

She did not know how to comfort him, so she merely replied, "I know," and squeezed. At least he squeezed back this time.

They had a colorless, tensely silent lunch in the Rosmerta family bar, in a hermetic corner selected by Abraxas, who had rapped his cane on a chosen table, snarling far too loudly about how the wood of the booths was rotting. There was really less room on the side of the table where Odile sat, but Lucius budged up next to her obstinately. He made every gesture towards impeccable dining, elbows off the table, napkin in lap, courteous and kind smile at the waitress—which only seemed to annoy Abraxas, who was watching shrewdly for a mistake to indicate and scoff at. None came, so he instead turned his compulsive critiques on the food, claiming that he found a fish scale on his fillet and that the salad dressing was too bitter. Neither was true to Odile, who had a fairly picky palette herself.

God, she wanted the afternoon to end more than she had ever wanted anything else in her life. Even a casual meal was an exercise in power games between these two aristocratic males.

Presently, Lucius sneered at the rabid, silver-blond badger over his drink. He tossed his "too-long" hair, drawing attention to its glossy volume, which did not help matters. But that seemed to be the point—provoking Abraxas just to the edge, to the tip, of an explosion. Oh God, and then he spoke, and that was all it took to start the worst part of the day yet. "Then perhaps we should leave, father." The tip of his long pointed nose turned red, and his cheeks followed. He looked like he was ready to elaborate, mouth slightly open and working for the correct words. Yet his pewter eyes glistened malevolently. He wanted a fight. She knew that look. He wanted someone's jugular.

Oh, Lucius, DON'T, Odile prayed. DON'T. Not now.

But he pushed back his plate, pointedly licked clean to discredit his father's gripings, and smiled broadly—it would have been handsome if it weren't so laced with venom. "Perhaps you should jusssst…pop back over to the Manor and tell mum you buggered my self-esteem once again in front of friends and girlfriends. Or no, sorry. You'll put it diplomatically—'darling, our Lucius was a disappointing handful as ever, but I managed, don't you fret.' "

This was the tone Lucius always took towards one of his Gryffindor classmates, a red-haired boy named Arthur, and towards Victor Renard, when Odile's childhood friend became too flirtatious with her in the Slytherin Commonroom. The same tone he had used when Odile had innocently stated that Victor had such a cute self-satisfied smile, and Lucius had remarked—grinning then, also—that he agreed, Victor's smile reminded him of a baby who "had just had a particularly good long fart." Yes, that same exact frostily pleasant, facetious tone.

Apparently this behavior was habitual at home, too, for Abraxas recognized the sarcasm immediately. "You apologize to me. NOW." He was so calm and quiet. Like a constipated volcano. Odile knew this had to be a danger signal. "RIGHT NOW." His knuckles whitened around the cane tip.

"I'm sorry, DAD," Lucius now hissed, and apparently this English term of filial endearment, "dad," was forbidden in the Malfoy household, for Abraxas exquisitely winced at it, like it were the most offensive of curses. "But you'll have to be more specific." He stood—just, Odile mused, to be at a physically higher place than his father. It must have felt extraordinarily powerful to him, at the moment. She could only imagine. "Shall I apologize for being an ungodly nuisance TODAY, or shall I apologize for EXISTING in the FIRST place?" Now his face was the ugly purple of his father's when Abraxas was laughing. "Because, DAD, it's rather unclear to me these days."

"You little bastard." Abraxas stood, now, too, leaning heavily on the cane. Odile found this fortunate, because she had the impression that otherwise he might have removed Lucius's head from his shoulders with it. "You insubordinate, witless PUP!"

Heads turned. Odile got shakily to her feet, thinking of an excuse to escape. She hated having so many eyes on her.

Abraxas, for all his interest in etiquette and taste hours ago, now abandoned care. "I ask you MERELY to give me my beloved dynasty's IMMORTALITY, to DO AS YOU'RE TOLD, WITHOUT questioning me, and instead you SEEK TO USURP ME AT EVERY TURN! Letting Eileen's sickly boy, that gawking SNAPE boy, win your Quidditch matches for you! Getting less than outstanding marks on your Potions and Arithmancy O.W.L.s! Mingling Houses! Ignoring lucrative social ties with the likes of the Blacks and MacNairs and Montagues! Dating this…this…ADDLED Auror's French WHORE of a daughter!" He gesticulated frenziedly at Odile, and she saw spittle flying from the bushy confines of his handlebar moustache. "YOUR CHILD, MY HEIR, WILL NOT COME FROM A FRENCH WHORE!"

The room reeled and Odile felt herself fleeing for the front doors to the bar. "Excuse me," she said, though her voice was too faint to be heard and she was already frantically turning the latch to safety and escape. All she could do was thank God no other Hogwarts students were in the place sipping butterbeer that day.

She heard Lucius speaking in a ferocious rising voice behind her. "Oh fine, FINE, sell the French your damned horses but don't associate with them—call their women whores without even KNOWING them! And YOU have very little authority when it comes to lecturing someone on whom he should fuck, FATHER."

There was the dull half-muted smacking sound of leather against flesh, and galleons being flung onto a table. Odile moved out of the doorway just in time for Abraxas to come charging past, having totally forgotten her in his rage, dragging Lucius alongside him by the shirt collar. She spotted Lucius's left cheek, which was red in the form of a handprint. She let out a faint cry of pity, and followed. "Please, stop," she breathed, trying to force her voice to grow louder. She could not.

Abraxas was now steadily ranting in a loud and hoarse voice, spittle flying from his jowls. He dragged his stiffly silent son, whose face was still nearly purple to match his own, into the Honeydukes candy shop. "WHAT IS IT YOU WANT FROM ME, BOY? WHY DO YOU HATE ME? WHAT ELSE CAN YOU WANT?" he was screaming. People gasped, murmured, and fled much as Odile had, until the shop was empty, their eyes shifting backward with fear—or gossiping glee, for many people hated the Malfoys and secretly coveted all their possessions.

Proof of the foolishness of jealousy.

Odile pressed herself against the glass of the nearest shop window, not daring to go in, though her eyes now streamed with quiet tears of pain and sympathy.

Abraxas's roars were barely muffled through the Honeydukes walls when the shop door closed. He had flung his cane down on the ground by Lucius's feet, and now he was running frantically to the barrels filled with cockroach clusters, fizzing whizbees, chocolate frogs, and other delights. He barreled up to his son with an unfathomably expensive pile of each confection, throwing them at him, into his clenched hands, onto the floor around him. "Take them, take them!" Odile faintly heard him shrieking at the boy. "When will I have your respect, must I BUY it? TAKE THEM!"

The entire scene was ludicrously melodramatic. It should have almost been funny. But oh God, it was NOT.

Lucius had long ago become dead again. His back was rigidly, perfectly perindicular to the ground. He gazed past Odile in the window, at a point above her left shoulder. His eyes were so dry. His face was so placid. He let the candies drop to the floor around him, numb to his father's tantrum. Closed off. Unable to be hurt—or so it appeared, at least. How did he do it?

Abraxas threw another sea of gold coins at the terrified young shop girl before stalking through the litter of candies, out the door, straight past Odile. A violent CRACK and he was gone, another crack in the distance showed him skulking up towards the school again.

Odile stood very still and composed herself. Then she entered Honeydukes. She stepped on some hard candies, which crackled protestingly. She stopped a foot or two from Lucius, who had taken to bending over and calmly, coolly cleaning up his father's mess. She waited for his face to crack, for his shoulders to slump. Nothing. He looked up at her—the only indication that he was devastated was that he could not seem to smile. "Get a garbage bag, please."

Dully, Odile obeyed. She continued to silently weep, as though somehow it had become her purpose to feel his emotions for him, surrogately. She handed him a purple bag, which the trembling shopgirl handed her. Even the Honeydukes employee looked closer to crying than Lucius did.

Calmly, he finished cleaning up the massacred sweets, and handed the bag to the shopgirl. "Did he pay you enough for it?" he politely queried, fishing in his pants pocket for his wallet.

"Y-yes, sir," the girl stuttered. "Please sir, don't worry, it's okay! You just don't worry, young master, never you mind!" Then she started to cry openly. "Hear, hear," Odile WANTED to say to it.

Lucius's face then cracked, but it was silent, icy rage that replaced the placidity. He was angry that someone was showing him pity. "Fine," he hissed, turning on his heel. He stormed right out of the place. Odile dashed after him.

"God, Lucius, WAIT," she cried, unable to stop herself from hugging him from behind.

He was very stiff. "Yes?"

She walked around to the front of him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him hard. She gasped—finally, some sign of emotion, for his lips were quivering rather badly. His face was so very red. He hid it in her auburn hair for a moment, then, when his hot cheek, against the skin of her neck, cooled pale again, he looked up at the setting late autumn sun, and loudly gulped. He looked down at her again, and was once more composed. "I should really like to go….somewhere else," he carefully spoke. His voice was hoarse. She didn't point it out. She felt all the eyes on them again, as people trudged to and from the village.

She nodded. "Sounds like a spectacular idea to me. I didn't like my lunch. Feed me—anything but candy." She smiled softly, giving him a purpose, and a hint that she was and would always be on his side.

This indeed extracted a faint version of the usual smirk. "Alright," he said, in a clearer voice.

"Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.  
Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.  
Lie to me,  
Convince me that I've been sick forever.  
And all of this,  
Will make sense when I get better.  
But I know the difference,  
Between myself and my reflection.  
I just can't help but to wonder,  
Which of us do you love.  
So I bleed,  
I bleed,  
And I breathe,  
I breathe no more."

-Evanescence

Hours passed in awkward silence in the dungeon. Lucius paced the Slytherin boys' dormitories several times, in slow deliberation, before turning to look at Odile. His face was remarkably composed, but his earlobes burned a bright red and there was a small crease between his eyebrows once again. "How…to say this." He sighed, gazing down at his shiny black patent shoes with the silver buckles, and the color in his ears crept to his cheeks. "My….father….is….a sort of….harsh….disciplinarian….but I assure you, what you saw and heard…."

"It's alright," she said, holding up a hand, with a calm nod. "I understand. I know."

Hey boyfriend blinked, caught, apparently, entirely off guard. "What do you mean, 'you know'?"

She took two steps towards him, hands folded almost meekly in front of her blue and bronze uniform. "My own father. Loads of fun and hugs in a good humor, devastated and devastating, critical to the last, even cruel, in a bad humor. He is emotionally volatile even when he is lucid. And that is all I feel comfortable saying on the matter, right now. So. I know. About being nervous around your own parent, but sensing you can also take it, feeling your own will and strength and selfhood. I know."

"Odile." Lucius said it as though the name itself were perplexing, with an uncharacteristically open expression. Then he gathered his invisible cloak of pride about him, tossing his sleek silver-blond head. "You do not seem the type to have been….ill-treated…nor to have deserved it." He nodded at her stiffly, cordially, as the compliment descended from his lips. "I don't stand for what my father said about you. Not in the least."

She wanted to giggle at his silly decorum, but she knew he needed it badly, so she kept her face straight. "Neither do you, my darling Master Malfoy."

He said nothing at first. Then, the glow in his ears and cheeks all the brighter, he drawled, "Well I. I should like to kiss you very much. Right this moment. Never mind that I've gotten loads of kisses from you already today." He smirked playfully.

"I love you," she said. Clearly and firmly. Then she kissed him, just as firmly, on each hot cheek, on the nose, and on the lips. She looked triumphantly into his face. "Ha. Now I have said it."

Now Lucius squirmed. "Well I. I." He cleared his throat. "Dash it, Odile…"

"Oh be quiet." She giggled at last.

"Well I." He coughed. "Um. Okay." Then he collected her into his arms and almost crushed her in an embrace, his face suddenly dripping of self-satisfaction and smugness, and something else that was a bit more complicated.

" 'Well you, well you!' " She laughed again, a loud joyful sort of feminine bark, into his shirt, and he shivered, grinning even more broadly, and let her go.

"Mmm." He tugged on a wayward braid. "Gotcha."

"You go right ahead and believe that."

"Oh, I do, Mademoiselle Guerrisseur."

She looked up at him then, resting her chin on his chest, pensively.

He tucked his own chin under to give her a square gaze. "Yes?"

"Don't you ever feel that you can show…anything…to anyone, Lucius?"

He blinked.

"Or is that also…forbidden?" she pressed.

Did his capillaries just beneath his marble skin begin to glow again? But he gave no other intimation of embarrassment or abashment. "I come from money, Odile, but that is the one thing the rich can not afford." He sniffed pragmatically. The question remained answered in only the most circuitous sense.

"I see." But she didn't see at all—even though she, too, came from wealth. Not _his_ kind of wealth—where you get lost in your own gold-encrusted mansion or have servants that materialize out of the walls simply to push your seat in or, what was more ludicrous, bathe you. But she knew enough comfort to be mortified if she ever complained of her situation in front of the less fortunate.

She stared up at her boyfriend's carefully placid face until at last he looked away, and let go of her braid.

"…I should see father off," he murmured, after a time. "Wait here." He pulled free of her and rushed from the room, as if to chase his departing resolve before he lost it.

It was a good five minutes before Odile saw the coolly glowing, tinkling silver bowl under his bed.

She knelt, shoving his green silk bedsheets out of the way, and peered at it—about the size of a punch bowl, with his initials engraved in an elegant Edwardian script. Inside was a beaming vortex of white-blue liquid light, punctuated by especially bright little web-strands, like transparent clear human veins. Odile gasped when she realized what she was looking at—a pensieve. Lucius's pensieve.

With what thoughts had he been eager to unburden his mind this morning?

Odile was not a nosy snitch. No, far from it. But so many times since they had met, she had wanted to inch a little bit closer to the more intimate, vulnerable, secret places of Lucius Malfoy—who "could not afford" to show anything to anyone, as he had just admitted aloud.

Here was her chance.

She glanced at the doorway behind her—Crabbe, Goyle, Lestrange, McNair, Zabini, Snape, every one of the other boys was still in class or practicing on the pitch. Lucius, who would guard this thing like a tigress with kittens now that she had discovered it, was occupied with his father. Here indeed was her chance.

She leaned forward and stared into the whirlpool, reaching her hand out to the closest and brightest ribbon of light.

She fell through miles of cold swirling wet air—unalarmed, however, as her father had made obsessive use of a pensieve before his complete mental breakdown, and she had snuck peeks inside it more than once, to vain despair—and finally landed on wet turf in some quaint but well-off English street corner. Automobiles of several decades past grumbled down the brick street, occasionally beeping at the markedly slow pedestrian. Odile smelled dewy grass underneath her and stood up on the gardened road meridian, shivering at the slight edge of cold in the air and the harsh, late winter sunlight, whose rays pierced the shadows of a series of specialty shops in the shape of a Bavarian village. After reading some signs—"Olivander's Wands, Wiltshire Branch," or "Flagella's Hippogriff Food Supply Shop"—contrasted against the groceries and boutiques typical of Muggles, she realized she was seeing the location as on at which Unplottable wizarding institutions were visible to only the non-Muggle eye. This was hardly surprising, as she was reliving Lucius's memory, that of a wizard-in-training.

Then she heard the fighting.

She turned to her right and peered down a dripping, dank alley, where an extremely well dressed little boy was being chased in frenzied circles by a gang of slightly older kids. These children were Muggles—they had no wands—and they were dressed in workmen's flannels and overalls, splotched with gear oil and char dust. The littlest boy's head was hidden, cradled by his hands, as he hunched forward and tried to evade their shoves, kicks and blows. The oldest among them, gangly with red hair and freckles, seized a pile of dead fish carcasses from the dumpster of a nearby restaurant and piled their smelly contents all over the littlest boy's periwinkle and white velvet wizard robes. The child whimpered and his attackers burst into raucous laughter. "Betcha he's a little nancy-boy!" the redhead crowed. "Looka these prissy-posh clothes! Wants t'bugger one of us, I bet!"

Odile's throat grew thick and tight, and her eyes stung for the child.

The littlest boy shuddered free of the garbage mountain and broke into a run—only to be caught by two of his attackers, a pair of unremarkable brunettes, who looked like twins. Some girls walked up, shrieking with laughter, and handed the twin brown-haired boys their hairpins. The redhead gave them what looked like a roll of red measuring tape from his utility belt. Then, with cruel slowness, they tied the boy's hands and feet so that he was hanging upright, like a scarecrow or the crucified, from the dumpster. The pins they fastened to the soft inner flesh of his wrists, so that if he moved, it would make incisions in his skin.

The redhead (he looked strangely like that Arthur Weasley boy, though Odile knew Arthur was not a Muggle but a wizard and one of the kindest of Gryffindors) rolled up his sleeve and backhanded the little boy across the cheek. There was a red swastika tattooed on his own wrist. "Wanker!" he snarled. "You'd think someone who looked like this kid would act the way of his blood! Blonder than a canary but trash anyway, what gives?"

Another gale of sick laughter all around the child.

The boy whimpered, but refused to cry out. His features were fine and fair, and somehow vaguely familiar.

It was then that the sun came back out and shed vicious light on the alley, and Odile could make out the boy's hair color.

It was blond.

Icy.

White.

Blond.

"Non…" Odile's hand flew to her mouth. "Ah, mon Dieu…"

Then there came a crashing sound behind her, and a man of immense stature, in silver and white velvet robes, who had just exited a shop near to Odile, dropped a considerable load of parcels and shopping bags and came billowing down the street, brandishing a cane. "GET AWAY FROM MY SON!" he roared, and the teenagers scattered like rats.

The little boy immediately started sobbing, and continued to howl with humiliation as his father, who resembled a rabid wolverine, ripped him free of his bonds.

Odile wanted to hug the man—at first.

Then he spoke, voice ringing like a wolf's growl into the empty alley. "At least you learned a lesson from disobeying me and wandering from my sight. I told you'd I'd be but a minute ordering food and supplies for the stables, but would you listen, you spoiled, temperamental boy?"

The child clung to his father's leg. "Sorry," he simpered, burying his face in the man's robes. But Odile already heard a note of resentment—even sarcasm—coming from the boy, who could hardly be six years old.

The great icy man kicked him away at once, like a gray-white, temperamental Clydesdale beating its hooves.

Odile gasped.

The child gave a wordless shriek of frustration. It was chillingly unchildlike—and well-practiced.

"No," the man rumbled, rapping the earth with that cane, a scepter or staff of some kind. The implement was black and shiny, with a silver bauble for its head. "Quiet. Stop crying."

Abraxas's cane.

Oh God. Was that man Abraxas Malfoy?

No. Every gentleman wizard carried a cane like that back then.

But the blond boy.

There were many blond children in the nobility, after all.

Yes.

Look at the Delacours.

It could be anyone.

But it was Lucius's Pensieve.

No! It could be anyone!

"Stop crying, I said!"

The boy got up and, gait wobbly, tried to go to his father again. He reached out with one pale little hand for the man's robe hem, then wiped furiously at a runny nose and swollen red eyes.

"NO," the man bellowed again, his right eye convulsing. He rapped the cane again. "Lucius, you are DIRTY. Don't get your snot and dirt on ME!"

_Oh God. _

The little towhead's pointed features twisted into a grotesque mask of vengeance. "THEY ONLY PICK ON ME 'CAUSE YOU MAKE ME HATE THEM! Maybe I hate YOU!"

"YOU be QUIET! Stop that SNIVELING!"

"NOOO!" The child howled like a creature in immeasurable pain. "NO NO NO!" He seized two enormous mounds of mud in his fists, face still twisted as though his skin were invisibly set on fire by his father's gaze. Given the list of curses patented by the Malfoy family, it was entirely possible. Then, as though having any six-year-old's temper tantrum, the child Lucius Malfoy hurled both handsful of earth at his father. Great brown globs splattered all over Abraxas's cherished silver and white robes. Lucius laughed in a high and angry way, turned, and madly ran.

Abraxas said nothing, but his face blushed bloody magenta in uneven spots, and his whole body trembled. He drew his wand from a robe pocket and silently flicked his wrist.

Lucius stopped running and closed his eyes. His face became eerily blank and peaceful, and he hovered gracefully upwards, arms outstretched and backwards. Then large gray eyes snapped open, and so did the child's mouth, and it was then that he started screaming.

Odile's skin rose in tiny bumps.

Oh God, oh God.

Abraxas was mumbling something now, while twisting his wand to and fro, and his whole face jerked and spasmed as though he were having a stroke. Odile couldn't understand most of the words, but she made out, "necklace in Borgin and Burke's, so very glad I studied the curse, now, aren't you, you little disease, you little insubordinate bast--"

Odile stopped listening. Her stomach heaved…she was going to throw up. She was going to throw up and faint and die of it.

The six-year-old Lucius was still writhing in the air and screaming as Odile had never heard someone scream. A child, a child, a CHILD! STOP IT. STOP IT! She was going to pass out, yes she was going to die of the noise, she couldn't stop listening to it, if she stopped it would be as though no one had witnessed such cruelty, it would be as if no one had vindicated the child by caring, but oh God oh Christ stop it stop HIM….

Then the universe lurched like a spinning top.

"What are you doing?"

Odile gasped. She was back in the boy's dormitories at Hogwarts. A cold vice gripped her shoulder. She looked up at Lucius Malfoy, whose face was paler than ash and whose eyes were wildly bright and furious.

"Spying on me, then?" His nostrils flared.

Odile opened her mouth to explain, to apologize, to tell him she loved him and wanted to kill his father, take him away from his father, do SOMETHING….but instead she vomited all over his Quidditch robes.

Lucius made a startled and disgusted grunt and stepped back, observing himself. He spoke in a tight hiss. "Oh hell, Odile! Do I look like a wastebasket!"

Odile burst into sobs. She could not stop herself—she could not stop sobbing, nor gracefully conceal it. She collapsed in a limp heap on the floor and rocked back and forth, crying and crying and crying, feeling all the sorrows of the world suddenly sieved through her body. She felt all resistance buckle, and suddenly her weeping and its causes extended far past the hideous childhood that she had discovered of her boyfriend. She saw her father breaking the pottery she'd made in a children's crafts class when she was four, in one of his manic tantrums, flinging it, breaking it in his hands, bleeding in the bathtub, calling himself a failure as an Auror, or else saying that he would be the Auror who would catch Voldemort himself, and giggling uncontrollably….she saw her mother, her stony, stoic, short and too-slender little mother, telling her not to cry at her grandmother's funeral….she saw Victor leaving Aix-en-Provence and going back to Marseille at the end of every summer, leaving her alone, with mosquito bites on her ankles from their two families' lake parties, and without a friend….she saw herself alone, an old maid with these voices screaming at her to just give up and die, all alone someday….It was like she had become a train on a downhill descent, with propulsive energy—the roaring in her ears, voices, voices, screaming, pain, disapproval, screaming, pain, screaming, pain, never enough, never, she couldn't slow it down, and she started to scream along with it to be louder than the voices that were telling her to die, just die, just die, too much noise!

A terrified expression had come into Lucius's eyes, though the rest of his face remained tight and bland. "Stop it. Stop screaming. Stop crying."

"You sound just like your father!" She was laughing, and a part of her realized how absurd that was. She grinned up at her arctic beau through her tears.

Lucius looked like he was struggling between reaching down and backhanding her across the cheek and embracing her. A vein pulsed on his forehead and he shook from head to toe—just like his father.

"Are you going to hex me with that necklace now too!" She screamed it, and then she laughed again.

"…Odile, what's come over you?" The hugging compulsion seemed to be eclipsing the slapping compulsion, but still he would not come any closer to her crumpled, weeping form. Then he reached awkwardly down and pat her arm—so nervously that it was more like a smack. Stinking puke dripped off his robes. He cringed at himself, ears reddening. She laughed at all this too. "Wait here," he nearly whispered, turning and fleeing the room.

Odile laughed and cried at the same time, terrified by the lonely sound that she was making as it echoed off the dungeon dormitory walls. He'd left her!

But Lucius came back. He stood in the doorway, staring at her, frozen for an instant, still in the sicked-upon robes. His face was becoming a dull puce-gray. Then someone behind him shoved him out of the way, softly but savagely cursing at him—another Slytherin boy, his black curls disheveled and his tan face openly worried. Victor.

Odile did not know how he crossed the endless void of frenzy that she somehow felt sure would forever separate her from another human being, but suddenly she was being held, vomit-breath and all.

By Victor.

The sound of ungraceful stumbling and Lucius, who was not her hero of the hour but who had indeed fetched him, was there too, squatting in front of her. Still his face registered complete helplessness. "Oh, Odile," was all he said, in a croaking, soft, almost despairing tone, and nothing more. She did not understand why, but he looked as close to tears as she had ever seen him.

A pause.

"Get her water, you idiot." Venom was sewn into each syllable. Victor again.

For a moment, Lucius forgot Odile, and looked at Victor with unabashed contempt. "I BEG your pardon?" His pupils contracted until they seemed to disappear, and his eyes were ghostly gray jewels.

This dramatic interval made Odile feel ill again. "Lucius, please…"

Victor set his jaw, unintimidated. His smoldering brown gaze grew hotter still. "Get her water NOW, or I will."

"….Fine." Just as the French Slytherin made to stand, Lucius haughtily sneered and rose, making a point of his speed and competence in providing the drink.

Odile had a feeling, however, that this was motivated more to win a competition with a worthy rival—the boy currently holding her in his arms—than out of love or concern for her. Despite the dismay he had displayed seconds earlier on her behalf, this new revelation stung. A lot.

Lucius noticed. "What?" To his credit, his eyes regained a keen degree of tender concern now. His pupils returned to their large, boyish circumference. He took her hand, the one closest to him.

But it was Victor who was still holding her, who gave her the water. She took it, hands trembling, and shook her head mutely.

"…No, what? Tell me."

"Shut up," Victor snapped. "Not NOW. Let her alone."

"Bugger yourself, Renard," the sharp reply. "She's NOT YOURS. I think you should in fact GO."

"After you asked me in here to take care of her, Malfoy?"

"Stop it," Odile moaned, clutching her head. "I am NO one's!"

Both boys fell still again. "Odile, je suis desole," Victor apologized in their native tongue, and it ached with sincerity. And what was ironic was he was not the one who ought to be saying he was sorry. THAT boy simmered in silence, glaring over her head. Ah. His pupils were gone again.


End file.
